


You Were Born Today (I'm Grateful)

by Inrainbowz



Series: Brother To You [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Birthday, Can be read on its own, Developing Friendships, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Ino-Shika-Cho Formation (Naruto), Kid Uchiha Sasuke, Kid Uzumaki Naruto, Minor Original Character(s), Sad and Sweet, both old and new, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inrainbowz/pseuds/Inrainbowz
Summary: Before they lived together, Naruto had never paid attention to the date.Before they lived together, Sasuke had never paid attention to Naruto.(Part 2 of that AU where Naruto and Sasuke adopt each other during the Academy days)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Back with more cute kids trying to cope with life. There will be some time skip between the different parts, but not that big for now. I have a timeline for this and all. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the attention on the first part. I hope you'll like this one two! If you haven't read part one, all you have to know is that Naruto and Sasuke started living together at Naruto's apartment and did super exciting things like laundry, cooking, and establishing house rules.
> 
> Also I started another fic, which is like, the opposite of this one in term of softness and stuff, but well, [check it out maybe.](https://archiveofourown.org/chapters/38461496)
> 
> Enjoy!

Things were going fine, or as fine as they could. They slowly adjusted to living into each other’s face and communicating about things they were unhappy about. And little by little, things they were happy about too. After a month, Sasuke barely went back to his own house anymore.

And then one day, he didn’t get out of bed.

Naruto needed a moment to realize what was wrong – Sasuke wasn’t bustling around the kitchen like he usually was. He was still buried under his covers, at the time when he should have been putting his shoes on.

“Hey, Sasuke? Are you alright?”

Naruto only received a muffled grunt and no further sign of life.

“Are you ill?”

This time came nothing at all. Sasuke didn’t deign to give answers he thought were obvious, so Naruto figured he was spot on. He warned Iruka when he arrived at the Academy, spinning a quick lie about how he knew about Sasuke’s condition – they were still keeping their cohabitation a secret – and resolved to buy some soup and painkillers on his way home. He didn’t want to buy any other medicine without knowing what Sasuke was suffering from, they were expensive and he knew nothing about them – he rarely got ill, and if he did it lasted a day at most. Maybe Sasuke would feel better already when Naruto got home.

Except when he did, Sasuke wasn’t there.

Naruto had trained himself to quench down the panic that rose every time Sasuke wasn’t at the apartment when he should have. They had signed the Rule scroll and Sasuke had tried to make it as clear as he was able to – which wasn’t very clear, but a little still – that this was for real. That he wasn’t leaving just yet.

So Naruto reined in his worries and set to prepare the instant soup. He even cut up a few extra vegetables so that it would look more like regular soup.

He reheated it several times. He stayed up way later than he should have, knowing classes would be painful the next day.

Sasuke never came home.

Naruto woke up still dressed in the previous day’s clothes, curled up on his bed, aching everywhere. Sasuke’s futon was still rolled up in its corner, untouched. Naruto changed clothes but didn’t bother with breakfast. He wasn’t hungry. Sasuke was supposed to warn him if he spent the night elsewhere. It was in the Rules. Sasuke liked the Rules, way more than Naruto did, usually he was unyielding about upholding them. Naruto was more worried than angry though, for now at least. He could rant about the rules when he was sure Sasuke was safe.

He was, because when Naruto arrived in class just on time, Sasuke was already sitting at his desk. Naruto couldn’t just confront him there and then, and besides something on Sasuke’s face told him that it wasn’t anger time yet. The boy looked exhausted and haunted, more than usual, more than he had in a long time. He most certainly had gotten zero sleep the previous night. What had he been doing then?

They didn’t go the Academy together – Sasuke left earlier to do who knew what – and they didn’t go back home together either – Naruto hung around the playground with Shikamaru and Choji and Sasuke stayed to train at the Academy. They hadn’t discussed it – it was just as it was. It was an unspoken agreement, that they would keep this new development in their relationship to themselves. They barely interacted at school too.

Even if Naruto had a feeling that this was for the best, he couldn’t help but think Sasuke was simply ashamed of him.

“Hey, Naruto! You’re coming to the candy shop with us?” Choji asked at the Academy’s entrance. Sasuke was heading straight home instead of toward one of the training grounds. Naruto declined, and followed him.

It was absurd, but still, he waited outside their building for a little while after Sasuke had gone in, just to see if he was going back out with his things packed up, ready to move out. Nothing of the sort happened though, and Naruto, feeling both relieved and a bit silly, went to join him in the apartment.

“I’m home,” he called, as he always did.

“Hi,” Sasuke answered, and that was a good sign at least. Sasuke missed on greeting him only when he was really pissed off, so Naruto decided it was safe to assume that whatever was plaguing the other boy, it wasn’t Naruto’s fault.

“Feeling better?” Naruto asked prudently, wary of setting Sasuke off. He was sitting on the bedroom floor, motionless and zoning out, a kunai in hand waiting to be polished in vain. He looked… defeated. Exhausted in the worse sense of the term, ready to collapse, never to wake again. But something eased on his face when he looked up to meet Naruto’s face and surprisingly enough, he answered.

“I’m fine. Sorry.”

By the Rules, Naruto had a limited number of times he was allowed to ask "are you alright?", and Sasuke had a limited number of times he could lie and say he was. Naruto thought it was unfair because how was he supposed to know if it was a lie or not? But Sasuke wasn’t that hard to read after all. Naruto could tell.

So he decided to let go for now. He seemed fine indeed now, or on the way to it. He wasn’t ill – that’s not what this was about. But the Rules also stated that Sasuke was entitled to be as broody and reclusive as he wanted from time to time as long as he wasn’t mean about it or didn’t hurt himself and others.

They had spent a long, long time on those rules.

“There is soup if you want.”

“Hm.”

Things went back to normal after that and Naruto wrote it off as an off day.

Exactly one week later, the same thing happened.

This time he couldn’t bring himself to leave for the Academy, and not because he was afraid Sasuke would disappear for good while he was gone, vanish forever. Well, not _just_ because of that.

He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to help. That urge had been growing stronger and stronger lately, every time Sasuke suddenly fell into sorrowful silence, every time something reminded him of something else – Naruto couldn’t guess either one – and he retreated back into himself, lost to the outside world. Naruto wanted to ease that pain, that burden, he didn’t want Sasuke to be so sad all the time. He needed to do something, he didn’t know what exactly, but the first step was not leaving him on his own.

So Naruto busied himself with cleaning and tidying up while Sasuke stayed buried in bed. A messy apartment always worsened the boy’s mood and that was one thing Naruto could avoid. They had been discussing a more thorough, in-depth cleaning of the place, something Naruto had never really done. They had talked to-do list and supplies, the best date to schedule this. He supposed it should have been all very boring – and would have been for any of the other kids they knew. But Naruto cherished those moments as he cherished all the others where he was no longer alone, where he didn’t have to have those discussions with himself. He would do everything he could so that it wasn’t taken away from him.

Naruto was pondering what to do about lunch, feeling like going out to buy onigiris at Sasuke’s favorite spot but unwilling to leave the flat, when Sasuke emerged from the bedroom.

He blinked at Naruto a few times, caught off guard by his presence. Proof enough that he really was out of it, because Naruto hadn’t been especially discreet.

“You should be at school,” he scolded, managing to keep a straight face when he was skipping class himself.

It was part of the Rules though. No skipping class. Sasuke was big on attending the Academy, for the both of them. He had been giving pointers to Naruto about the course material and during training too. He said it was annoying that Naruto was so bad. Naruto couldn’t really disagree – it annoyed him too.

“I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

Sasuke frowned harder but didn’t have the gale to deny it again.

“Are you hungry?” Naruto said as a peace offering. Food usually worked, in his experience.

“Hm.”

He reheated some leftover curry and tried to be inconspicuous about his monitoring of Sasuke’s intake. He didn’t eat nearly enough but he still downed some of it so Naruto decided he would get a pass from his nagging for today.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked once they were done and Sasuke was out of it again, staring at some unseen spot in Naruto’s back. Sasuke blinked a few times, confused, and Naruto was certain it was going to be a hard no, maybe even an angry snarl.

Instead, Sasuke’s expression broke down for just a second, overcame by a pain Naruto had a hard time grasping.

“Not… not yet,” he answered, voice shaking.

“Alright. D’you want me to… stay here? Still?”

Once again he was sure it would be a no, that Sasuke would push him out and send him to school. Nothing short of a war or a deadly disease was justification enough to skip class in his eyes. Naruto didn’t like what it said about him missing two days in a week, or not minding Naruto doing the same.

“I… I think I’d like that.”

.

_“You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”_

He didn’t have a single memory of his father ever giving him advice. Be it about training or about life in general. Even the thing he’d taught him, he would explain once and leave him to it. All the bits of wisdom he had ever gotten were from his mother.

Except for that one.

That one was from Itachi.

He’d say that out of the blue, one day when they were training and Sasuke was particularly broody. He had refused to tell his brother what it was about, and Itachi had just kept asking, patiently, until he had dropped this one.

_“You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”_

Even at that time, Sasuke had found it rich coming from him and his ever-silent demeanor, but Itachi was also often right about things, so he'd believed him. He'd tell him about yet another relative comparing both of them, about how he felt so weak and inadequate compared to his brother. It was embarrassing and he had hated it – it didn’t feel good in the slightest, to hear himself being so whiny and childish, and to Itachi no less.

His brother hadn't mocked him though, or told him to get over it or to just become better. Instead, he'd dropped that other bit of wisdom which, like the other one, felt very ironic then and even more now.

_“There is more to life than being a good shinobi.”_

A saying he had never, ever lived by. What was there more to Itachi’s life than this? There wasn’t even family, friends. Wasn’t even his brother. Being a good, a strong shinobi, that’s all Sasuke had ever seen Itachi care about.

So much that he’d…

So how could Sasuke believe him on the rest? How would talking make him feel better? Talking meant someone else would know, meant this would take up even more space in reality where he couldn’t escape it.

Except it wouldn’t be “someone” who knew. It would be Naruto. Naruto’s words and comfort weren’t meaningless like all the others, even when he didn’t know what to say. And Naruto did make him feel better. It wasn’t anything in particular that he said or did, it was just him.

He used to feel this way around his brother too. It felt like a lifetime ago.

_“You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”_

He wished his mother had taught him that one. It would have made it easier to follow.

He was sure Naruto would crack and ask – it might have been for the best, to just have to answer. But Naruto was very careful about not overstepping any boundaries, about respecting the distance Sasuke maintained. The other boy probably hated it, but he was always careful, careful, careful. He got that scared, wary expression when he said something he thought was a misstep, and he looked at Sasuke like he expected him to disappear in a puff of smoke at the slightest offense.

Sasuke didn’t know how to beat that out of him. How to convince him that he wasn’t going to explode and opt out.

Obviously, Naruto had his own issues to deal with.

Which made it both harder to confide in him, but easier too. Naruto was no stranger to pain. Maybe he couldn’t relate, but he could empathize, could understand.

He wouldn’t ask though. Sasuke had asked him not to, so he wouldn’t.

Sasuke was sitting at the kitchen table with yet another mug of tea. The water boiler had been used more since he was here than ever before. He liked tea. It was linked with only gentle, soothing things in his mind. Quiet home time at the end of the afternoon, peace after a turbulent dinner, shared silence in the morning. Something that was both a cure and a recipe for melancholia.

Naruto was trying to learn historical trivia by heart for an upcoming interrogation – and not making a good work of it. His efforts were commendable but Sasuke had never seen anyone lose interest in a task so fast. Naruto spent more time wrestling himself into focusing on their textbook that actually reading anything.

One thought led to another. Naruto wasn't good with dates. He didn't own a calendar.

Was there any meaningful date in his life, like in Sasuke’s, he wondered. He wasn’t good with dates. He had never had to retain any.

Sasuke had been sitting there for almost an hour, knowing what he wanted to say but unable to work the words past his lips. Waiting at the edge to have the courage to tumble right in, to _talk_. And it’s that thought of all thought that unlocked it somehow.

“It was my mother’s birthday last week.”

It felt like inhaling after staying too long under water. He hadn’t realized how tense he was, how knotted his throat had been around those dumb few words. Naruto’s head shot up and it took him no time at all to read the mood, to understand what was happening. His homework was immediately forgotten.

“When you skipped class?”

“Yes. I was… The… They were cremated but someone had a stele put up in the cemetery of the Uchiha temple. I went to visit and I… I couldn’t leave anymore.”

He had spent the night right there on the cold base of the stele engraved with the names of all the clan. It was the first time he came anywhere near it but once he was there, it was like it was drawing him in. He was hypnotized by his parents’ name written so bluntly on the stone, cold and emotionless. That was all was left of them now. That was all they were.

He’d stayed the whole night and he would have stayed more. Maybe forever.

But it was his turn to make dinner that night and Naruto would have been mad if he skipped his turn without even warning him.

So he'd gone back.

“I…”

He swallowed around the lump constricting his throat. He had gone that far, he could go on.

“I miss them.”

The whispered confession rung like a gong in his ears. He fought back tears mercilessly, eyes downcast so that he wouldn’t see Naruto’s reaction, and Naruto wouldn’t see his.

“I miss them so much.”

He let go of the mug, fearing he would crush it. His fists closed around empty air.

“I’m sorry.”

The crack in Naruto’s voice made him look up. He stared at the other boy, puzzled.

“Why are you crying?”

Naruto sniffled loudly.

“Because it’s sad. You’re sad. It makes me sad too. I’m sorry.”

“Why? And why are you sorry?”

Naruto shrugged, rubbing his face only to spread tears and snot all over.

“Because it happened. I wish it hadn’t. So you wouldn’t be sad.”

It was so simple, so dumb. If it didn’t happen. If it didn’t happen.

Sasuke closed his eyes. He wouldn’t cry. Crying was useless. It solved nothing, didn’t make anything better.

“What about today?” Naruto asked. Sasuke froze. He hadn’t decided yet if he was going to talk about today, but now he had to.

This one was scarier. This one he didn’t want Naruto to know.

“Today was…”

There was no calendar in Naruto’s apartment and Sasuke wished he could have forgotten. Wished he didn’t know the date and that it didn’t have meaning. Wished life was vastly, vastly different, so that it wasn’t today.

Or ever.

“Today was my… my…”

Who was he, really.

“Today was Itachi’s birthday.”

It hurt to say the name. Naruto frowned.

“Okay, huh… Who was Itachi?”

Time froze.

.

Naruto knew he had said the wrong thing as soon as he uttered the question. The name didn’t ring a bell, he’d heard it from others maybe, but it’s not like he knew anything about Sasuke that was older than two months. He was trying to understand and to learn more. But that, he shouldn’t have asked.

It was always crazy to witness that Sasuke could indeed get even paler than he naturally was. With his dark eyes, dark hair, dark clothes, he became a black and white figure, devoid of any colors.

Naruto didn’t like it. It made him think of death.

He had an apology on his lips, ready to spill, but Sasuke had lectured him about always apologizing even when he didn’t even know if he had done something wrong. He was trying to get better about it, and learning, like Sasuke had taught him, that him being in a bad mood wasn’t necessarily – and was even rarely – Naruto’s fault.

“He’s… He was my brother.”

Naruto could have punched himself in the face.

He knew next to nothing about the details of the tragedy that had befallen the Uchiha clan. Only that they had all been slaughtered by one of their own, and that that one was Sasuke’s older brother, who had spared only him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t be blamed - this time it _was_ his fault, because he had made Sasuke say it when he clearly didn’t want to.

“Did you… want to go back to the temple? You miss him too?”

Naruto was trying to keep track of Sasuke’s feelings as best as he could. He had never missed anyone before. He only had Sasuke as a point of reference, and despite the very short time they had spent together, he could feel his chest constrict at the simple thought of the other boy disappearing suddenly from his life. It was the only inkling he had into how Sasuke was feeling.

So it seemed logical to him, but somehow it was the wrong thing to say, again. Sasuke’s face hardened and heated up at once, color coming back in the form of an angry red flush as his whole body went rigid.

“No I don’t. He’s a traitor and a murderer!”

Naruto recoiled, taken aback by the sudden aggression.

“I know but… he was your brother right? And you were close, right? And he’s gone so…”

“It doesn’t matter! He’s… he’s… I can’t miss him!”

Sasuke was on his feet, hands flat on the table, the full force of his glare trained on Naruto. But it wasn’t intimidating or uncomfortable like it usually was. Naruto could see it this time – it wasn’t at him that Sasuke was angry. Not really.

He resolved to say what was on his mind, even if it made it worse. They were allowed to speak their mind freely in here. It was in the Rules.

“I… I think you… can.”

Sasuke didn’t move an inch. It seemed like he wasn’t even breathing.

“It would be normal I think. You, huh… you… loved him? And he’s gone forever. So…”

Naruto was just trying to piece this together. People were missed when they were gone. That much he knew. Even when they were bad. Even if it was better than they were not here anymore.

Okay, that bit he’d gathered from the last movie he’d snuck into the theater to see.  Movies were his main source of wisdom.

Naruto watched as Sasuke balanced on his emotions like he often did. Either anger would explode, or it would recede suddenly. It was hard to predict.

“I can’t,” Sasuke said again, stubborn. “After what he’s done…”

“Yeah but it’s like… like he had died, a bit.”

The result was the same anyway. The man who was Sasuke’s brother, wasn’t he dead? He had to be, for it had to be another person who could decimate their own family like this. It wasn’t something Naruto could begin to comprehend, but it made sense to him that way.

Sasuke sat back slowly, war raging in his eyes as he pondered. Naruto was reasonably confident that the other boy wouldn’t lash out on him, but he still stayed on alert, just in case.

“Do you think… do you think betrayal is like death?”

Oh. That was a very hard question.

Naruto couldn’t tell him that to him, death was like betrayal. Couldn’t tell how he resented his parents for dying and leaving him alone in this cold world. Sometimes he liked to imagine that they weren’t actually dead but they were traitors indeed. That they had betrayed him in the literal sense of the term, him and the whole village. It meant they were out there somewhere and that it was a choice they made, and he was right to be angry then. Death was too random, something he couldn’t get angry at.

It was so vain, to curse the dead.

“Yes,” he said simply. In the movie they had also said that it was important to mourn the dead, even if it looked awful. Maybe Sasuke would mock him though, if he quoted it back at him. Sasuke knew these things for real, he had been taught them by real people.

Real people that were gone now. Naruto had a hard time wrapping his head around that.

The silence stretched out, as did the shadows cutting through the air around them. The sun was setting behind the buildings and the trees, taking its light with him. Sasuke’s eyes were trained on his hands. Naruto didn’t dare interrupt his reflections.

Sasuke’s voice sliced into the silence as his eyes rose to meet Naruto’s.

“I do miss him.”

And then, unprompted and all at once, came the tears.

.

Naruto was by his side in an instant. He wrapped his arms around Sasuke’s shoulders. Sasuke couldn’t move, entirely rigid, hit with the full force of that realization. There was no stopping the tears that were already flooding his face with a vengeance, like he was now letting go of all the ones he had held back until now.

“I miss him too,” he kept saying like a broken record. “I miss him too.”

And it was so awful of him because it’s not like he wished Itachi was still here. He had no word to describe the burning hatred that filled his heart and soul when he thought of his older brother. And yet, and yet.

He still missed his brother, missed his parents, his family, his life. Even if Itachi had said it was all a lie. It wasn’t, to him, when he snuck into the next door bedroom to read on Itachi’s bed while his brother poured over reports and assignments. When they trained together in the woods behind the Uchiha district. When they went through Itachi’s old weapons and clothes to see which one Sasuke liked and could keep.

He knew it was bad, but he missed it all the same.

Last week was his mother’s birthday, and it should have been her “No doing a thing” day. Itachi would have cooked, Sasuke would have helped, their father would have stayed around too. Granted maybe not this year because they worked so much and things were going so bad – he didn’t know what things, was too young to be involved, but he wasn’t stupid.

Still, he would have stayed by his mother’s side and try to reassure her that everything would be fine even if she looked worried and sad.

And today… He didn’t know. Would his brother have even been home?

All he knew was that Sasuke would have given him his present. He had bought it months ago. It was still in a drawer of his bedroom at his family house. He’d seen the sheath at the weapon shop and immediately thought of how Itachi’s was falling apart and how he’d say he was looking for a better one for his sword.

That very same sword he’d used to…

How could have things gone so wrong. Why were they this way. What had they done. It didn't make sense to him, nothing did. He'd been happy buying it, he'd imagined his brother's reaction, hoped he would like it. He didn't know back then. How could he? How could he not? Why had no one, nothing told him that it would never come to be because by the time Itachi’s birthday rolled around, all his clan would be gone and he would be left with only Naruto to pick up the pieces?

Sasuke cried and cried, and at some point he moved to get free of Naruto’s embrace because it was shameful and terrible, and instead he found himself burying in deeper, clinging to the other boy’s shirt and squeezing as hard as he could, crying a world's worth of tears. Naruto was crying too, loud and ugly sob, and he couldn't tell which of them was making that low, broken whine, which of them was hiccupping around their labored breath, which of them was shaking so bad. Maybe it was both.

But after a long while, when the flat was plunged in the dark and his tears finally dried out, Sasuke was forced to come to term with the fact that his brother hadn’t lied about _everything._

Because he did, indeed, feel better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fascinated by Sasuke's relationship with Itachi. Not so much by Itachi himself haha. Sasuke often got on my nerves, but I'm constantly reminding of the fact that that boy was fucked up so freaking bad. No wonder he could never properly function. I'm here to fix that tho :p
> 
> I also like dates and will feature several more birthday and anniversary in this x) told you my timeline was on point.
> 
> You can follow me on [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) for updates and fanarts. Thank you for reading, see you soon!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many things Naruto simply never learned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one! A little shorter maybe? Moving through more cute and heartbreak, and them getting more involved into each other's life. Thank you all so much for your support, hope you'll enjoy!

Seeing Sasuke dissolve into tears was one of the scariest moment of Naruto’s life.

It also hurt a whole lot. Naruto was stranger to this feeling of helplessness, of seeing someone dear to him in distress and being unable to make it better. He could do nothing but gather him in his arms and not let go – doing what he had wished someone would have done for him many times. He didn’t want Sasuke to think he was alone, because he wasn’t. Naruto wasn’t much, but he wouldn’t let go.

They stayed like this a long, long time, until Sasuke’s tears finally dried out and they managed to calm down a little. From experience, Naruto knew that it felt like the tears would never ever stop, but they always did, eventually.

Something felt different since then.

Sasuke didn’t look so haunted. He was still gloomy and sad, but maybe it was that he wasn’t so angry about it anymore. They didn’t talk about it any further and didn’t address it, but Naruto was sure something had eased inside of the other boy, that even if it had been a truly terrible moment, it was, in the end, for the best.

To the point where Sasuke blurted out a “thank you” a few days later.

He came back home just as Naruto was starting to heat some water for the miso. Naruto had been starting to join him during his training session after school lately, but he didn’t feel like it today. The classes had been long and tedious and he’d gotten three separate lectures on his behavior and poor performances, and he just wanted to go hide safely behind his door as soon as possible.

“I’m home,” Sasuke said, and no matter how many times it had been, it always spread warmth inside of Naruto’s chest.

“Welcome back. You hungry?”

“Hm.”

He set to cut up some vegetables. They had a schedule of who was supposed to make dinner, but more often than not they ended up doing it together. Naruto had this thing where he liked to be where Sasuke was, and he had the impression that Sasuke did too.

They worked in companionable silence for a little while and for once, it wasn’t Naruto who broke it with his ramblings.

“Thank you.”

Naruto looked away from the pot with a puzzled expression.

“It’s my turn to cook y’know.”

Sasuke huffed in the way Naruto recognized being the one he had when he was annoyed about having to spell out something he had hoped Naruto would catch. They agreed that Sasuke really wasn’t clear most of the times though, so Naruto wasn’t to blame.

“Thank you for the other day,” he developed, keeping his focus on the knife in his hand. “For listening and… and just being there.”

Naruto didn’t know it was worthy of thanks, but he was happy he could help Sasuke, even a little.

“You’re welcome.”

“If you ever need… I’ll listen too. If you want to talk.”

Naruto shrugged.

“I’m fine.”

He had nothing going on. He was okay.

.

It took Sasuke a week.

He threw the book on the table in front of Naruto’s nose. The blonde picked it up carefully, puzzled.

“What is it?”

Sasuke was working on that thing where he was angry for absolutely no reason, so he tried to keep his scowl at bay as he answered.

“It’s a cookbook. It’s full of recipes. I was thinking we could try one tonight.”

Naruto nodded absentmindedly, unaware of the meaning behind the book he was flipping through idly. Sasuke took a deep breath.

“I… retrieved it from my house. Last time. It was… It’s my mother’s.”

Naruto’s eyes widened and he looked at the handwritten pages with a renewed interest. There were some flying papers, written by others or thorn from magazines, some lines scrolled hastily and barely eligible. Main dish, dessert, appetizers… and bright sticky note marking the ones that were the most successful, the ones she did all the time.

Sasuke didn’t know if he could bear to look at it.

He opened it to one of the marked pages.

“I thought we could try this one,” he said. He had subtly bought what he thought they would need during their last grocery trip, just in case he found the courage to actually go through with it.

“Yeah, alright. What is it?”

“Sukiyaki,” Sasuke said in an exasperated huff, pointing at the top the page where it was written in big letters at the top. “Alright. You read the instruction and I’ll do it.”

It kind of made sense since it was, after all, his turn to make dinner. The fact that he couldn’t bring himself to read his mother’s handwriting had nothing to do with it. Naruto’s face fell as he looked back at the page. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

“Come on, you can give me a hand!”

“Yeah yeah, I will. I will.”

“What’s first, the sauce, right?” Sasuke asked, already taking the soy sauce and sugar out of their cupboard. He had seen his mother do this often enough that he had a good sense of what he was supposed to do.

“Huh… yeah.”

“How much is it?”

“I don’t know, huh…”

“Come on, there’s the list at the beginning.”

He busied himself taking the other ingredients out, but nothing came. Trying not to lose his patience, he joined Naruto pouring over the book at the table.

“It’s just there! Just read it to me.”

“I… I can’t.”

Naruto kept his eyes firmly trained on the page. Sasuke saw red.

“What do you mean you can’t? It’s not like you have better things to do!”

“I just can’t ok! Why don’t you do it?”

Sasuke snarled, not ready to admit he plainly didn’t want to.

“I’m just asking for a little help, can’t you just do this? For me?”

“No I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“I can’t read it!”

Sasuke opened his mouth, ready to snap back, because the meaning of Naruto’s words didn’t make their way into his mind immediately. To his defense, it was simply too wild to consider.

“What?”

Naruto stayed stubbornly silent, still sitting in front of the open book, head hanging low. Sasuke took the next chair, feeling like they were not going back to cooking any time soon.

“Naruto… You can’t read?”

The blonde’s head snapped back up, his face scrunched in an angry frown that was ruined by the shine of his eyes.

“’Course I can read! I can! ‘m not stupid!”

“I didn’t…”

“It’s just… I don’t know some kanji that’s all. And it’s written messily. Like… by hand. So it’s harder. It is.”

Sasuke glanced at the page. His mother’s calligraphy was neat and precise, especially when she had taken her time, like for this one. It wasn’t as readable as printed text or the big, careful signs of the Academy teachers, but it was easy enough to decipher for anyone who was a decent reader.

“So you can’t read… handwritten kanjis?”

Naruto’s eyes were wide with panic, and his cheeks darkened by shame.

“You can’t mock me!” he exclaimed. “You can’t mock me, it’s in the rules!”

Sasuke was at a loss as to how to react. Too much was happening at the same time. He had gathered that Naruto wasn’t a fast reader, nor a good writer, but this was much more than that. If some of their teachers were careful with their writing, it wasn’t the case for all of them, and some of the documents they studied – the scrolls and some of the oldest texts – weren’t written with young, untrained readers in mind.

He had never heard any of their classmates take issue with it though. And he had never heard Naruto complained either.

Because he was… ashamed?

“How come you don’t know?” Sasuke asked, trying to keep any trace of contempt out of his voice.

“How come you do?” Naruto shot back. They were brought back briefly to a similar argument weeks ago. They had both started the Academy at seven and had had some vague reading lessons, but Sasuke could already read and write fluently at that point.

Some of the elders in the Uchiha clan were in charge of teaching this and some to the clan’s kids. It worked the same in other clans, and even for civilian children who were taught by their parents or other relatives.

Sasuke was split between bewilderment and something else. That thing that only showed up when Naruto was involved, when he was angry or sad or happy but not for himself. That quiet outrage and deep compassion, they had nothing to do with Sasuke and everything to do with Naruto. He felt them for him, on his behalf.

How was it possible, how had he gone so far with such a poor grasp on reading. And why did he felt so bad about it, like it was his fault. Sasuke had thought that Naruto was kind of dumb before, like everyone in their class. He had changed his mind in about no time at all. Naruto sucked at school but he was far from stupid.

And maybe Naruto sucked at school because he _couldn’t read_ half of their material.

Sasuke’s chore stirred again, but he decided to make an effort and put the anger on the side for now. He scooted closer and dragged the book between them. He put his fingers on the first line.

“That says Sukiyaki. And that says ingredients. So we have udon, then tofu, then…”

“I’m not dumb. I don’t need your help!”

Sasuke glared at Naruto’s frowning face.

“Twenty-four,” he said sternly.

Rule twenty-four was the latest rule implemented and it stated that if one of them knew something the other didn’t, they were obligated to listen to their explanations instead of trying to do things by themselves. It had come after two consecutive incidents, first Naruto setting a pot on fire, and then Sasuke getting them banned from one of the laundromats for flooding it because he put too much product in the wrong compartment of their machine.

Both had been concluded the same way – “if you had just _listened_ to me…”. Thus, the rule.

Naruto was pouting full force and tears weren’t off the table yet judging by his shiny eyes. Sasuke resolved to try to give some sort of reassurance, despite being terrible at it.

“I’m not saying you’re dumb, alright? But if you don’t know, then you have to learn, that’s all.”

“I swear I tried,” Naruto mumbled in the collar of his shirt where he was hiding. “They taught us hiragana and katakana at the orphanage and then there were some books and we were supposed to learn kanjis but… And then I didn’t… I’m sorry.”

Sasuke knew Naruto had been an orphan his whole life, both his parents dead the day he was born. He had never given it any thought but it made sense he’d been raised at the orphanage for the first few years of his life since he didn’t appear to have any single living relatives in the village. But he had also been living alone a really long time, which didn’t make much sense. Why didn’t he stay there? Some kids older than him were still in the care of the institution.

It was a discussion for another time but one Sasuke had been meaning to have for a while now. The question of what was going on with Naruto and the village.

Not now though.

“It’s alright. It’s not your fault.”

Now, Sasuke had experienced this, the other way around. When Naruto had said it was okay that he missed his brother, or that it was okay to want to be happy despite everything, that feeling of a door opening on a dark room, flooding it with light.

The way Naruto was looking at him now, it had to be the expression he’d had then. For such a simple, base fact.

“It’s not your fault,” he said again, just to be sure, and here it was again. Naruto’s eyes sparkled like he had just received a huge gift, like he was hearing that for the very first time.

Most likely because he was.

“Alright,” Sasuke said with a new determination. “We’re doing this.”

They ended up eating instant ramen because there was no time to cook, not when Naruto couldn’t read food kanji. Sasuke wasn’t the greatest teacher, he wasn’t very patient and easily gave up in frustration, and Naruto wasn’t the greatest student – he wasn’t very patient, and easily gave up in frustration. But by the end of the evening the Sukiyaki page was no longer indecipherable to him and he promised he would read it for Sasuke to make the next day. Sasuke made sure to tell him he had done good, like none of their teachers ever did. He was rewarded by a blinding smile and a thank you so earnest it made him uncomfortable, considering how little a thing it was.

Sasuke had a hard time falling asleep, thinking of all the way he could teach Naruto better. He had no idea how to fix his own problems, but this one he could, and he would give it his damn best.

.

Iruka waved at the kids, asking them to stay calm while they exited the classroom and despairing at them not listening at all. Classes were done for the day and he couldn’t say he wasn’t glad about it. Sometimes those little terrors ran him to the ground.

He was already lost on his plans for the night – some good takeout and papers to grade in the blissful silence of his small flat – and as such didn’t notice immediately that one of his students had stayed behind.

To his defense, it was so out of place for Uchiha Sasuke to seek him out that he first thought the boy had just forgotten something. But no, he stood by the teacher’s desk, scowl firmly in place but confidence faltering as he avoided Iruka’s gaze.

“Can I help you, Sasuke?”

Iruka had asked that question a million times. To his students in general, but to Sasuke in particular. Sasuke had never said yes. Be it for lessons, training or personal matters, he stubbornly refuses any help, even when he was dealing with his grief. It made Iruka crazy to see the boy’s obvious suffering and be powerless to do anything about it. Sasuke didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to reach out, and no one had been able to get through to him.

Sasuke nodded.

Okay, Iruka, stay cool. He could do this, no big deal. Except that if he screwed this up Sasuke would probably never talk to him again. _No big deal._

“What is it?” he encouraged, picking on the boy’s hesitation. It was rare to see him like this, dancing from one foot to the other with his hand clasped behind his back, gaze fleeting and a light blush on his cheeks.

Just nervous like any kids would.

“I need some resources for reading lessons,” he finally declared in one breath.

“Do you have difficulties reading?” Iruka asked, knowing it had to be something else. He wasn’t expecting such an unusual request. The boy shook his head.

“It’s not for me,” he said, and by the stubborn look he raised at Iruka, it was no use asking for who it was then.

Iruka didn’t have to know though. The demand was harmless, whatever its purpose, and he wanted to earn the boy’s trust. That started with no prying when he didn’t need to.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t curious.

“I’ll find that for you,” he said, mentally looking for the place these kinds of material could be stored.

“Thank you,” Sasuke said politely. He was gone the next moment.

When he walked back home that day, Iruka took the long road to stroll through the village. He couldn’t help pass by Naruto’s building – he had yet to work up the courage to reach out properly to the boy. His colleagues had all told him to just forget about him and not bother, but there was no way he could do that, and he didn’t understand how they could either. He was a teacher, he was supposed to help his students, all of them. Naruto struck a chord inside of him. So cheerful, so lonely.

Maybe he would invite him to eat some ramen this week. Maybe they could…

“And what’s that one?”

Naruto’s voice made him stop dead on this track. For a second he thought the boy had addressed him, but when he spotted him by the corner of the street, he saw that he was talking to someone else.

Specifically, Sasuke.

He was pointing at the sign of the nearest shop.

“That’s “modification”,” he answered. Naruto nodded before pointing to another spot.

“And that one?”

“”Recovery”. They go together, see? It means “repair”.”

They were talking about kanjis. The kanjis that spelled the shop’s name. Naruto moved to the sign by the door advertising for the promotion of the day and they went through the board, one kanji after the other.

Sasuke translated each one patiently as Naruto nodded seriously. When they reached the last line, Naruto shushed him.

“Don’t tell me! I know these!”

He thought about it for a while.

“It’s “reduction”!”

Sasuke _smiled._

“Good job.”

Naruto’s smile could have powered the whole neighborhood.

They turned away without noticing Iruka, standing arms hanging and eyes wide a few meters down the street.

It took a moment to remember how to walk.

He was dealing with several major revelations at the same time and didn’t know which one to focus on first. Naruto didn’t know basic kanjis. Sasuke was most likely… teaching him how to read? Naruto and Sasuke were friends. Naruto had been surprisingly well-behaved lately, but Iruka had barely noticed, besides thinking a "things are very clam heh" in passing. Sasuke had been less gloomy.

_Sasuke was teaching Naruto how to read._

They weren’t interacting much at school, which was actually a change compared to a time where Naruto often picked up a fight with the other boy, especially during training. Iruka had thought nothing of it either. It’s not like they were acting like friends.

They obviously were. And they were obviously happier for it.

Iruka forgot to buy dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iruka is mystified XD I love the headcanon that Naruto can barely read at the Academy because I'm an asshole like that. Disclaimer: my knowledge in japanese is base basic at best. I did learn hiragana and katakana first though before moving to kanjis, and you just have to learn hundreds of them by heart and hope for the best. I also remember Mako from Kill la Kill who couldn't read kanjis. Sadly kids going through middle school and even high school barely able to read and write exist, at least in my country. As for handwritten vs. printed, it's my personal interpretation of being unable to read kanjis I know in calligraphy x) Sasuke will take care of it though haha.
> 
> Tumblr is [here](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) for fanarts and updates, tell me what you think, see you!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is allowed to say that Naruto and Sasuke aren't friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Launching the Birthday Plotline. Haha, "plotline". Yeah right x) I'm having such a good time writing this you have no idea.
> 
> You can check my [tumblr](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com) for updates fanart and comic, and also cause I made a quick post about pairing in this story (the gist of which is Naruto & Sasuke will remain platonic 'cause brothers). Enjoy!

Naruto had asked Iruka and Iruka, in a twist that was bound to get less surprising with time but still made Naruto giddy and a little awed, had accepted.

Naruto had even confessed that he had had half a mind to just sneak into the teacher’s lounge and get the info himself, but had decided he would ask first. Iruka had congratulated him for that wise decision and assured him that they were no reason why he would have said no to such a simple request.

Naruto had kept for himself a comment about how the other teachers didn’t need a reason to deny him anything and everything. Other teachers didn’t matter when Iruka was so nice to him.

And so, Naruto had asked Iruka to tell him about Sasuke’s birthday, and Iruka had given him the date no questions asked.

Naruto had never cared about any date. The only one he knew was his own birthday, and it was a day best not thought about. He had no idea a calendar could be such a minefield, until they had to go through Sasuke’s mother and brother’s birthday in quick succession. Dates were important it seemed.

He had little experience with the whole thing and wasn’t sure yet what he wanted to set up for that special day, but he was excited just about it. He also hoped he could stir Sasuke away from further anguish – it would be his first birthday on his own, without his family.

Plus, Naruto wanted to thank him. Sasuke had been teaching him how to read properly, and it was amazing. The other day Naruto had raised his hand when Iruka-sensei had asked about which kanji meant “explosive” out of the dozen he’d written on the board. He’d ask him to answer and Naruto had been right. He’d not resisted glancing at Sasuke to see his reaction, and Naruto was sure he’d look a little proud.

Naruto had no idea how they had gotten there, what had brought Sasuke in his life, but he was grateful, and he wanted to show it.

It turned out Naruto shouldn’t have worried about missing the date. As soon as July rolled around, it became the sole subject of conversation among the girls of their class.

Granted, it wasn’t _all_ the girls. Upon closer observation, it turned out it wasn’t even most of them, though it was still more than a half. They were just very loud and the rest, by comparison, was very quiet. And they were obsessed with Sasuke’s birthday.

A few months ago, he would have tuned it out and ignore it, maybe even not noticed at all. What did he care about Sasuke’s fan club and their latest craze? But things had changed since then, and now he could do nothing but listen and get increasingly frustrated.

“I want to give him flowers form my garden. They’re so pretty this year!”

“I was thinking about weapons, like new kunai or shuriken. He likes those.”

“What about a book? A romance story… that would make a great confession!”

“I’m going to get him a new shirt.”

Naruto was very confused. All these girls always claimed loud and bright that they were in love with Sasuke. Now Naruto didn’t know the first thing about love, but he was reasonably certain you had to know the person at least a minimum. And clearly none of them knew anything about Sasuke at all.

First of all, flowers were a bad idea if they were already cut. Naruto had asked Sasuke to water his plants once, because Mizuki-sensei had given him detention again early in the morning and he didn’t have the time. One of them had died a few days later – most likely from too much sunlight since Naruto had forgotten to move it.

Sasuke had been inconsolable.

He was wary about approaching the plants now, even if he was always fretting over them, worrying about their position, their water and their soil. Naruto had taken up to teach him all he had picked up himself about home gardening – one of the very few subjects in which he seemed to have some level of natural talent. He also had a book on plant caretaking that he had found on his doorstep a few years back and that was still to this day one of his most prized possession, even if he never knew who had gifted it to him.

So, no flowers. Sasuke would probably _cry_ when they inevitably died, and that would be absolutely awful.

Second, weapons would have been a good idea, if any of the girls could afford it. Sasuke already had his own extensive stash of weaponry, and it certainly wasn’t the kind they trained with at the Academy or the ones they sold to Academy students or even genin at the weapon shop. He was so particular with them he got angry when Naruto moved them – a necessity, since they were progressively taking up all the closet space in the bedroom. When he was in a talkative mood – rare, but had been known to happen – he liked to lecture Naruto about the different kind of kunai and stuff. Naruto couldn’t even tell them apart, but he believed the other boy, and he would have listened to him talk about pretty much anything anyway.

Recently, Sasuke had taken offense at the sorry excuses for ninja weapons Naruto was training with, had dumped it all in the trash, and declared that Naruto could use his from now on, until they had enough money to buy him his own. Naruto still smiled goofily when he thought about it.

Anyway, unless they stole high-class weapons from the shop or their parents, nothing they could get would even blip on Sasuke’s radar – he did have a radar for good weaponry. It was hilarious to witness.

Romance story was beyond laughable. Sasuke didn't read as much as Naruto would have guessed. He was a training nerd for sure, but not so much of a bookworm. The only thing he read were ninja treaties on ninjutsu and biographies of famous shinobis. If Naruto was quiet and still enough, Sasuke would read aloud for him. Some of those stories were great, he had to admit.

As for clothes, Sasuke was even more particular with those than he was with weapons. Naruto had noticed of course, how increasingly distressed Sasuke was by the rapid shrinking of his clothes. He didn’t want to hear about wearing anything else than his clan branded clothes, but it wasn’t like he could buy those at the local store. Naruto theorized more had to be lying around at the Uchiha district, but Sasuke, after having such a hard time staying away, now avoided it like the plague. Maybe it was even his mother who used to sow the clan symbol into his clothes. Whatever it was, this gift was actually liable to angering Sasuke greatly – anger was his getaway setting to all emotions he didn’t want to deal with, like sadness, grief, pain, frustration, exhaustion, anxiety, stress, hunger… Most of them, really.

“I’ll buy him something sweet. Maybe some dango.”

Okay, now that was enough.

“Sasuke doesn’t like sweets, especially not dango.”

Not only did the girls’ conversation quieted entirely, but so did all other discussions around the classroom. Naruto felt the weight of his classmates’ attention drop down on him, but he met Ino’s eyes head on, even as she glared at him like he had insulted her personally.

“What do you know about Sasuke’s likes?”

“More than you, obviously!”

Naruto was in the minefield now but he couldn’t back down. He resisted the urge to check on Sasuke’s reaction, who was minding his own business in his back corner, but couldn’t not be following the whole exchange.

It wasn’t anything like an official rule or something they had discussed, but they had kept their arrangement a secret all the same. They interacted very little at the Academy, barely more than before Sasuke started living with him. The main difference was that they had stopped arguing at every turn and beating each other up in training, but that hardly qualified them as friends in the others’ eyes.

Would Sasuke be mad, if he exposed them this way? He should have thought about it before opening his big mouth.

“We’re in love with Sasuke! We know more about him than you do!”

“It’s supposed to go the other way ‘round! You love him ‘cause you know him, you’re not magically an expert just ‘cause you say it’s love!”

“You know nothing about love!”

“You don’t either!”

The other girls joined the screaming match but still, Naruto didn’t back down. They wouldn’t get physical, not in class anyway, but they were good with words, he knew, especially when they wanted to use them as weapons. Panicked, he kept talking, even if he had no idea what he was saying.

“You’re stupid and that’s not love! Love is… love is about the other, not about you! You’re supposed to want them to be happy, not you. You don’t love him!”

“Oh, and you do?”

“Yes!”

Mercifully and with great timing, it was the moment Iruka-sensei chose to barge into the classroom. He required everyone to be quiet and join their seat, and the subject was dropped for now. Naruto’s face was burning with embarrassment and he absolutely refused to look in Sasuke’s direction, or anyone’s really, choosing instead to hide behind a book and pray a sudden fire would set the school ablaze and send them all back home for a week.

He had no such luck, of course.

He tried his best to escape the Academy as soon as classes ended, but that was a skill he had yet to master. How did Sasuke do it? Maybe Naruto would ask him, if Sasuke still wanted to talk to him at all, if he was even still home, by the time Naruto managed to escape the pack of angry girls that cornered him at the Academy entrance.

.

Naruto was taking too long.

Sasuke had gone straight to the apartment after classes and thought Naruto would do the same, but there was no blonde in sight and it was starting to make him antsy. What was he doing? After his earlier outburst, Sasuke was sure Naruto would want to hide at home.

Maybe he should have waited for him so that they could walk the way back together. But they didn’t do that.

It’s not that Sasuke was ashamed or anything. It wasn’t about that at all. The thing was, he wasn’t sure Naruto knew about that. They had never discussed it, but Sasuke had made him understand that it was probably best that they kept this… arrangement to themselves. Naruto had agreed without asking for an explanation.

Lately though, it was becoming increasingly frustrating to see Naruto face their idiot classmates and not be able to do anything about it. Sasuke had been silently fuming while the girls cackled about gifts he wouldn’t care about, and of course Naruto couldn’t just keep his mouth shut.

Sasuke was trying not to think too hard about what he had said exactly.

The front door opening provided a welcome distraction, and he abandoned the scroll he was fake studying to meet Naruto in the entrance hall.

“I’m home.”

“What took you so long?”

Sasuke winced at the anger in his voice. No matter what he did, he felt like he always sounded pissed off when he addressed Naruto. He wasn’t angry right now. Or well, if he was, it wasn’t at Naruto. He was angry very often, but it was directed at the blonde very rarely. Unfortunately, that wasn’t so easy to communicate.

“Sorry, were you waiting? I just… ran into some… people.”

Naruto had to be the worst liar Sasuke had ever seen. He wasn’t just bad at it – it was simply beyond his grasp. He didn’t think about lying, not before it was too late. His first instinct was telling the truth, speaking his heart, no matter how embarrassing or dangerous it might be. He owned up to most of his pranks, never shied away from punishment. In fact, it was a sure way to know if he was guilty to what he was accused of. The boy couldn’t lie to save his life.

It made it even worse when teachers punished him anyway from mischief others had dumped on his head. There was only Iruka-sensei to bother actually listening to what Naruto had to say. Sasuke had always dismissed their softest teacher as unremarkable and average, but the man was rapidly bumping up to the top of his favorite adult list, because he was the only person in the entire village – save from old Teuchi maybe – that treated Naruto decently.

Sasuke had noticed, of course he had. They would have to discuss that too at some point.

“It was the girls right? What did they say?”

Naruto was upset, that much was obvious. Words were Naruto’s greatest weakness. They could easily destabilize him, and the other kids knew it.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Naruto. Tell me.”

The anger again. Sasuke wanted to tell him that he was angry after them, not him. That he was angry at the entire world but not him, never him, not anymore. He wished Naruto could understand him without words, because words were Sasuke’s weakness too, albeit in a different way – he couldn’t use them at all.

“They just… they yelled at me ‘cause I had no business talking ‘bout you, and stuff. They said I didn’t know anything ‘bout nothing ‘cause I had no friends. I told them you. You were my friend. And they said…”

The blond hesitated, looked to the side, probably to calculate his chances of escaping through the window and saving himself from that conversation. Sasuke glared at him, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised just like his mother did when she knew he was guilty but waited for him to admit it. Naruto didn’t look at him when he picked up.

“They said there was no way you’d ever be friend with me anyway. You, or anyone, but especially you.”

Before Sasuke could say something – he didn’t know what, but it would have come to him, surely – Naruto started speed-talking like he did when he was especially nervous or scared.

“It was my fault though I’m sorry for stepping in like that, I know you didn’t want them to know, but it was so annoying and I couldn’t just say nothing at all. I’m sorry I said we were friends, and that I defended you like that. I mean…”

Sasuke felt terribly guilty, as he watched the blond work himself up because he didn’t know any better. Sasuke had promised, he’d promised he would try harder to use the words, to say the things. It was so hard though, and here they were now.

He’d try harder. Because Naruto was on the verge of tears and Sasuke _hated that._

“Naruto. Naruto, you have to breathe.”

The blond stopped talking and did as he was told, biting his lips to keep it from quivering, and to keep the flow of words in probably. Naruto had so many words and Sasuke had too little. He wished they could share, even it out a bit.

“Let’s… let’s move,” he said lamely. They settled at the kitchen table. Sasuke made them both tea because it’s what people did before an important talk, or so he thought. Naruto wrapped his two hands around his mug and hunched over himself to sip at it without having to lift it. He could also hide his face inside.

“I’m not ashamed. And I’m not mad. That’s not why… It’s not that I don’t want people to know. I don’t care.”

Naruto lifted his big, shiny eyes to look at Sasuke. He seemed determined to stay silent for now, so Sasuke would have to do the talking.

He could do it. Easy.

“I don’t care about our classmates anyway. They’re dumb.”

Usually Naruto would have protested. He was really out of it, to say nothing at all.

“It’s just… I was afraid maybe… Maybe there would be people who wouldn’t agree. Grown-ups, I mean. Do you… Do you get it?” he asked, a little desperately, because he really didn’t want to have to voice it aloud.

It was upsetting though, that Naruto nodded seriously. That he, indeed, got it. They had never talked about it, but they had both decided it was best to hide it for the same reasons. They had a sense that people might not approve. That people older and higher than them who had authority and power over their life despite never showing up in it, could have something to say about it

Could do something against it.

And Naruto and Sasuke would be powerless to stop it.

“When I was… when… A long time ago. My, my… parents, they said… they said I couldn’t approach you. Really couldn’t. As in it was forbidden. And I never knew why but…”

Sasuke was aware most of the other kids had received some sort of warning from their parents. Don’t go near that kid, don’t befriend him, stay away from him. But it was different for him.

It was different because his mother had been furious.

He remembered it clearly now although he had not thought much of it at the time. The way his father had told him that he _couldn’t_ approach Naruto, it spoke of an interdiction that ran deeper than just the mistrust of worried parents for a mischievous kid. His parents had argued well into the night after that, his mother raging and begging in turn, maybe crying a little too – Sasuke hadn’t dared listen to closely. Come morning though, the subject was closed, even if she looked bitter and angry.

He was convinced it had nothing to do with the will of his parents. As such, he couldn’t be sure the ban had been lifted by their death.

“But we are. Friends. We are friends. We are friends, Naruto. And you can tell people. Because it’s true.”

And since Naruto's eyes were already welling up, Sasuke added quickly "I want a rule that says you have to stop crying every time you're happy."

“I can’t help it!”

“But it’s scary! Crying is for when you’re sad! You freak me out every time!”

“I’m just happy that’s all!”

“Then stop crying!”

It was terrible because Sasuke had a knot in his throat to but he wasn’t going to _cry._ There was only Naruto to cry like that at every occasion.

“I’m happy, that’s all…” Naruto repeated softly. He was smiling too, the small and soft one he had when he was happy for real about something, something precious he would hold on to.

“Idiot,” Sasuke said half-heartedly.

They resume their day after that, Naruto on kitchen duty and Sasuke tasked with folding the previous day’s laundry. He couldn’t help but think though. It was best to keep their cohabitation to themselves, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends out there. Sasuke was sick of staying away, especially when Naruto got sad and there was not one of those idiots to notice it.

It wouldn't do. He didn't want Naruto to be sad or lonely, and he didn't want him to doubt Sasuke was his friend. He was no closer to get better himself, but helping Naruto, that he could.

.

Naruto hurried on the way to the academy, munching on a toast he had grabbed at the last minute. They only bothered to have a proper breakfast on weekends. During the week Naruto snacked on what he could find, and Sasuke didn't have breakfast at all.

When the Academy came into view, Naruto was surprised to see a gaggle of student gathered at the entrance despite the late time. Coming closer, he noticed it wasn't a gaggle of students, but a gaggle of girls. Specifically, Sasuke’s fangirls.

And the reason why they were standing outside was that Sasuke himself was standing there in the sun, casually leaning against the Academy's fence and superbly ignoring all of them.

Naruto sped up toward the entrance, intent on passing them as quickly as he could, hoping he wouldn’t get caught. That was without counting with Sasuke, because as soon as he spotted Naruto, he stood up from his walls support and casually walked toward him.

“Let’s go.”

And proceeded to fall into step with Naruto toward the classroom.

Now Naruto knew how questioning Sasuke about what the hell he was doing was a sure way to anger him, so he tried his best to erase the gaping expression on his face – if only so that he wouldn't look like the girls that were staring after them in disbelief – and they silently went to their classroom, Sasuke as relaxed and unbothered as if they had been doing that all their lives, while Naruto was trying to determine if he was under a genjutsu or something. If he was, it was a powerful one because everyone around them saw what he was seeing, judging by their face.

The surrealism shot up to the next level when instead of going to the back of the class to the row he usually favored, Sasuke slid in next to Naruto on the third row. Shino was already sitting by the wall, and Naruto took that seat if he could because Shino was the nicest kid of the class to him, by virtue of never acknowledging his existence in any way. Most of the times the third seat stayed empty.

Not today though, apparently.

Sasuke had his back to him, so Naruto could only guess the kind of glare the boy was leveling at their classmates, because no one said a thing. When Iruka-sensei entered the classroom, he only rose a mildly surprised eyebrow but made no comment either.

Next period Mizuki made a snide one about Sasuke’s sudden change of scenery, to which the boy only replied he saw better from there.

Sasuke stayed by Naruto’s side the entire day.

At lunch, instead of retreating to his corner or disappearing to who knew where, Sasuke stayed right where he was. He took his bento out of his bag just like Naruto did, and he ate in silence right there next to him. He ignored all the girls who approached him and Naruto was happy to ignore them too, even if he could feel their burning gaze on his back. They were going to light him on fire when he was alone.

Except they didn’t get the chance. Because he wasn’t. Alone.

The next day was the same, and the next. They sat together and ate together too. Sasuke even came to the playground with Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba and Naruto, even if he stayed on the side and didn’t join any of their game. None of the boys made a comment though, or were mean to him, which Naruto was grateful for. Sasuke wasn’t that well-liked among the boys of their class, who found him arrogant and depressing.

It didn’t take long for Sasuke to pick up to what extent exactly Naruto was struggling with keeping up during class. It was mortifying, except Sasuke wasn’t mean about it at all. He took it upon himself to read him the instructions when needed, to write in a corner the signification of the kanjis he didn’t know.

One day Mizuki scolded Naruto for talking during class, while Sasuke was explaining to him the chakra diagram they were studying. Sasuke, completely serious, apologized in his place.

“Sorry sensei. I was just asking Naruto to explain something to me.”

The look on their teacher’s face was _priceless,_ almost as much as the one on Sasuke’s, who didn’t falter one bit at the man’s dubious expression. In the end, Mizuki couldn’t say anything and just went back to his lecture with a scowl.

Sasuke gave Naruto a barely-there smile before picking up his own explanations.

From then on, at the Academy, it became Sasuke-and-Naruto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke growing this super protective streak gives me life. Poor boy can't deal with his own problems but he sure is going to deal with Naruto's. 
> 
> Plant lover Naruto and weapon nerd Sasuke are two headcanons I cherish deeply and that will feature a lot in the future ^^ also, I won't bash any characters in this. The girls are being annoying right now, but they're just... being kids, like it's not meant to bash them at all. In fact next chapter will be focused on Sakura and Ino and how they perceive what's going on, and how that perception will evolve. They will all develop close friendship much sooner than in canon. The next part will be focused on Naruto charming every last genin of the village, with Sasuke cause package deal x). We'll also have to touch upon what the higher-ups think of all this... 
> 
> Once again tumblr is [here](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com), please comment if you liked it, bye!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haruno Sakura had a Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ENTER THE GIRLS.
> 
> Okay real talk. I like Sakura, I do. Or at least, I like the idea of her, and what the fandom's take on her. I have a lot of issues with her character and female character in Naruto in general, but I don't want to take it out on them. Fortunately, this is fanfiction, where we're free to do whatever we want. Sakura and Ino are still brats in this, like the rest of them, but well. I hope you'll like them.
> 
> I really shouldn't be getting you used to frequent updates because sooner or later inspiration or free time will run out and we'll all be stuck in three-updates-a-year hell... Welp. Also I wanted to thank you all for your support, comments and kudos and notes on tumblr. I really didn't think the Naruto fandom would be so responsive and active and I'm pumper. You're the best. ([tumblr is here btw come chat about Naruto](http://inrainprose.tumblr.com))

Haruno Sakura had a Plan.

It had escaped no one in their class how Sasuke had suddenly gotten much closer to Naruto in the last few weeks. Not only that, but as a result, mocking the blonde boy, which was no big deal for anyone up until then, had become the surest way to bring the ire of one Uchiha Sasuke upon oneself. Both Sakura and Ino had suffered the terrible humiliation of getting glared at to death by the boy for making fun of Naruto’s stupidity and horrible fashion sense, and they weren’t about to risk it again.

After Naruto’s ridiculous outburst about Sasuke, they were sure they would come back bruised and battered the next day. Instead they were now attached at the hip. No one knew where that sudden change had come from, but they had quickly understood that it wasn’t going away, and that they better get used to it.

A few days earlier, one of the girls showing off her new dress to the others and noticing Naruto looking at them a few feet away had turned to him and said with a mean tone, “you wouldn’t know what it feels, to have new clothes like that.”

It had been cruel and unnecessary, and Sakura had felt bad about laughing with the others, but she had anyway. She wondered if the others felt bad too, if even the girl felt bad, if none of them wanted to be mean like that but still were, for reasons she couldn’t articulate clearly.

She wished she was the one to stand up and speak up about it, the way she had wished someone would do for her when she was younger. The way Ino had done, once upon a time, and thus become a hero in her eyes, a status she still held even if they weren’t really friends anymore.

Sakura had done nothing. But Sasuke had. And Sasuke wasn’t much for words.

So instead, he’d stood up and “accidentally” spilled his inkpot on the girl.

The dress was ruined, the girl in tears, and Sasuke was not sorry in the slightest.

The worst thing was probably that Naruto had been the most upset of the lot, right after the girl. Sakura had seen him later, scolding Sasuke and asking he apologized.

And Sasuke _had_.

Since Naruto was always quick to brush off any such offense, Sasuke had also decided to be merciful, it seemed, and didn't hold too many grudges over those who had wronged the other boy. Well, it depended on the offense, probably. Sasaki's eyebrows had yet to grow back after the prank he had pulled on Naruto had earned him a Katon jutsu in the face.

That was the new normal, apparently. Sakura could work with that. What she had initially seen as a major setback into getting Sasuke alone – the two boys were rarely seen apart anymore – had turned into a great opportunity in her opinion. For months now she had been trying to get Sasuke to agree to go out with her after school for a snack or a drink near the Academy, and today, she had a Plan, and she was definitely getting that date.

She approached them at lunch break, as they were both digging into their respective bento boxes with two very different degrees of grace and care. She noticed distractingly that they were eating the same food.

“Hey Sasuke, hey Naruto!”

“Oh, hello Sakura!”

“What do you want?”

Naruto elbowed Sasuke in the side, who only sighed in great annoyance. This would have been an unthinkable scene only a few months ago with how they were constantly at each other's throat, but well, people became friends, she imagined. Just as they became rivals.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go get something to eat with me after school,” she said to Sasuke, fighting off a blush and trying to ignore their classmates who were probably eavesdropping. Before he could refuse though, she dropped the first part of her Plan.

“I mean both of you.”

Sasuke’s mouth closed shut as Naruto’s opened in surprise. The blonde boy pointed a finger at himself, as if to say “you mean me?”. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn’t _that_ extraordinary!

The two boys shared a look, one hopeful, one annoyed, and she moved to the second part of her truly awesome Plan.

“I was thinking we could go get ramen.”

She mentally pumped her fist in triumph as Naruto's face lit up from the inside, his eyes shining with wonder as he elbowed Sasuke again, obviously trying to get him to answer. Sasuke sighed, but Sakura saw it – the barely there flicker of a softer expression, the hint of a smile, as Naruto launched into a calculation of how long it was since they had gotten ramen last, like it would tip the scale in his favor somehow. It wasn’t that long ago, but the way he said it, it could as well have been in another lifetime.

But she didn't care about any of that, because her Plan had worked perfectly. Naruto was already on board, of course, and as she predicted, Sasuke wasn’t going to deny him. He gave a small nod which made Sakura’s insides turn to goo, as Naruto cheered loudly.

Having the idiot blond as a tag along wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing at all. She would sit next to Sasuke at the ramen shop and try to get him to talk about himself, to see what he thought of her. She was also trying to figure out a good birthday present, and she was short on ideas.

She couldn’t deny that the prospect of food was also very alluring. She had been trying to lose weight after an off comment from some girls the year above them, that she would never be good at anything with that much fat on her. She had never been confident with her body and how she looked like, and those girls knew better, surely. It was also a recurrent topic of conversation among the girls in class, so it had to be important.

Maybe it would get Sasuke to notice her at last. And maybe she wouldn’t lag so much during training anymore. Surely having less weight to carry would help.

So, ramen, and Sasuke. It was going to be awesome.

Except Sasuke’s expression suddenly folded into a thoughtful one, and then he declared solemnly, “wait, Naruto. We can’t today.”

Naruto cast the most betrayed look at his friend – because that’s what they were. Friends. It really couldn’t be denied now, Sakura thought. He pouted full force, getting ready to whine probably, and Sakura was secretly encouraging him, because he had to make Sasuke change his mind again! He had too!

Before he could though Sasuke raised a pointed eyebrow, staring at Naruto with insistence, carrying a whole conversation just with the way he narrowed his eyes and pinched his face.

Finally, after an awkward silence where Naruto was frowning, Sasuke was getting increasingly frustrated, and Sakura was just standing in front of them, completely forgotten, the light switched on in Naruto’s brain.

“Oh!”

“Yeah.”

“But does it have to be today?”

“We said it would! You promised.”

Sakura held back a dramatic sigh. With that, she had definitively lost the game – reminding Naruto of his words was as good as a magic spell. No matter how small, how stupid the promise, he always made good on it. Sakura had given him an extra onigiri once because her mother always packed too much and he had nothing to snack on after an impromptu morning training that had left them all exhausted – a favorite move from Mizuki-sensei that had them constantly packing water and food now. Naruto had been so grateful, so happy about something so simple, and he had promised he would repay her. She had insisted it was nothing, ill-at-ease with how happy the offering had made him. True to his words though, he had brought her a snack the very next day. Not onigiri though. A small packet of umeboshi, which were one of her favorite foods. They were store-bought and far from great, but the memory remained clear.

“You’re right,” he admitted before turning toward. “Sorry, Sakura, we already have something planned for today, but another time, right?”

“Right,” she said through gritted teeth. She stormed off before he could add anything, feeling her cheeks burn in humiliation and anger.

What did they have to do that was so important, that they would change their mind like this, that Naruto would say no to ramen? Maybe she should have offered to pay. Her mother had been so happy to hear she wanted to eat outside, after worrying about her starving herself, that she had given her way more money than necessary for one meal.

No, it wouldn’t have changed a thing, she thought. They had decided they had better thing to do.

And dammit, she wanted to know what it was.

.

She wanted to get confirmation that they hadn’t lied. That’s what she told herself as she walked the street behind them, pretending to be shopping and keeping an eye on their two retreating backs. If she was honest with herself, she would also say that she was mad curious about what they were getting up to. What could Sasuke and Naruto possibly do in their free time? If they had lied, she could confront them about being rude. If they hadn’t, she would still learn some things about them.

“What are you doing, ugly?”

Sakura squealed and immediately pressed her hands against her mouth, casting a quick look at the two boys, worried they had heard her. Fortunately the street was busy enough, and they seemed deep in conversation, with matching expression of great concentration.

“Leave me alone, Ino-pig! It’s none of your business!”

“You following Naruto and Sasuke is my business.”

Sakura glared at her, annoyed at having been discovered so easily.

“If you know what I’m doing, why do you ask?”

Ino huffed, electing not to answer.

“I heard they blew you off today,” Ino said viciously.

“They had something planned already!” Sakura defended, much more inclined to believe it if it meant Ino would shut up.

“Oh yeah? What?”

“Why do you think I’m tailing them,” Sakura mumbled reluctantly, knowing what would come next.

“You suck at stealth. I’ll come with you so you don’t embarrass yourself.”

Sakura rolled her eyes as Ino fell into step with her. There was no deterring the other girl. She probably didn’t want Sakura to know something she herself didn’t.

They didn’t have to walk much longer, for Sasuke and Naruto took a sharp turn to enter one of the biggest grocery stores in the village. Sakura figured they were going to buy snacks and drinks or something, but they bypassed all the food sections and instead made a beeline for… the cleaning products?

Ino and Sakura had to go around in order not to be spotted, and crept into the aisle directly behind where the two boys were arguing quietly, so that they could eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I'm telling you!" Naruto exclaimed. From the spaces between the various packs of laundry, Sakura could see him gesticulate wildly, the way he did when he was trying to make a point. "This is the one I've always bought! It works fine!"

“It would if you had used it often. But we need something stronger to get rid of all that you didn’t clean with that. We have to take this one!”

“But it’s super expensive!”

“It’ll last for a while! Don’t worry about it!”

“I told you I didn’t want you to pay for all that stuff.”

“And I told you I would anyway, so quit it.”

Sakura looked at Ino, who seemed as puzzled as she was. They finally settled on the expensive thing, but in a small bottle, and moved down the aisle, the girls following from the other side of the cleaning product wall.

“Do we still have that thing for the kitchen?”

“I don’t know… I’m not sure.”

Another item joined their basket.

"It's going to take forever…" Naruto complained as they discuss the merits of different dusters.

“Has to be done,” Sasuke grumbled as an answer.

“Hey, I know. We’ll do it okay? Biggest cleaning ever. Properly and all, I swear. The flat will be clean enough we can eat on the floor.”

“We’re nor eating on the floor!”

“I know! It’s just… an image y’know!”

“Hm. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“You’re so mean.”

“We also need more laundry detergent…”

“Oh, let’s go to the laundromat this weekend! We can go grocery shopping while the machine runs.”

“Hm. Alright.”

They walked further away, but this time the girls didn’t follow. They looked at each other, at a loss on what to do or say, on how they were supposed to react to all this.

“Ino, Sakura, is that you?”

The two girls jumped with a yelp and spun around to come nose to nose with Naruto and Sasuke, who had rounded the aisle while they were lost in thought. Naruto seemed happy enough to see them – Sasuke, way more suspicious.

“Hey boys… How are things?” Ino asked with an awkward laugh. Sakura was as red as a tomato and hated herself for not being able to fight it. If they didn’t suspect anything about their presence here before, they would now, with how her culpability was radiating off of her face.

“We’re… buying some stuff. You too?”

Despite her shame, Sakura didn’t miss the hesitation, the look he exchanged with Sasuke, the silent conversation they seemingly had in those two seconds of eye contact. It’s true that they had been spending a lot of time together at school, but Sakura had never heard or seen anything that suggested they actually…

She wasn’t even sure. They actually _lived together?_

“Yeah. Something to eat, you know,” Ino said, grabbing the first thing she could from the nearest shelves, which turned out to be a bag of dry raisins that made her grimace. Naruto was oblivious. Sasuke’s eyes narrowed even further.

“Well, good luck with that,” he said curtly. “Naruto, let’s go.”

“See you later!” the blond said cheerfully as Sasuke pushed him toward the checkout. Deciding to at least try to maintain the illusion a bit, Ino and Sakura skimmed the shelves a little while longer. Ino even held on the raisins despite the disgusted faces she made at it. They didn’t say a word as they paid for their purchase and found themselves back in the street.

Sakura danced on her feet for a second. She wanted to say something, she wanted to talk about it, but the words wouldn’t come. What was there to say, what was there to talk about? She felt terrible without being able to identify why exactly, to make it better.

“Ino, do you…”

“Hey.”

It was almost a relief to be interrupted – expect it turned out to be Sasuke. Sakura spotted Naruto a few meters down the street, busy eyeing some fresh dango with a hungry look. Sasuke had his hands deep in his pocket, one plastic bag looped around his wrist – they had split their purchase, each of them carrying a bag filled with cleaning supplies.

“Sasuke? Is there a problem or…”

“Keep it to yourself.”

Ino opened her mouth again but thought better of it, because she stayed silent. Sasuke was frowning, ever so serious, but he wasn’t aggressive or angry. If anything he almost looked…

Worried.

“What are you…”

“Don’t try that with me. Just… Keep it to yourself.”

He cast a quick glance to Naruto, now counting money from his wallet, and added one word quietly, so quiet Sakura almost missed it.

“Please.”

“We will,” she said, finding her voice all of the sudden. He gave her the barest nod before turning on his heels and joining Naruto. He put out his own wallet and bought a box of dango despite the blond’s protests who was arguing that Sasuke didn’t even like sweets. The girls kept staring after them as they bickered, until they disappeared in another street.

“Why do they want to keep it a secret?” Ino asked. She sounded wistful, almost sad.

“I don’t know. But…”

For a second Sakura was worried she wouldn’t do it, but Ino glared at her and Sakura understood she didn’t have to say it. Ino started walking, probably toward the Yamanaka Clan’s estate, and Sakura didn’t want to be alone just yet, so she fell into step with the other girl, despite her house being in the opposite direction.

Her hopes that Ino would be the one to start the conversation dwindled with each step – the blond stayed stubbornly quiet. Sakura cracked eventually.

“I never thought about it. All of it. Everything.”

She wasn’t sure what exactly she was talking about. Ino nodded anyway.

Sakura knew that Naruto was an orphan. That he had grown up without parents. In her mind, it mostly meant that he was free to do what he wanted – mainly idiocies – and that he was badly behaved, badly raised.

Except he… kind of wasn’t. Not that much.

It’s just what her parents always said.

They had a strong opinion of him, even if Sakura couldn’t recall them meeting the boy even once. When she had started the Academy, she had told them about all the kids in her class, and they had been very displeased about Naruto’s presence. They had advised her not to mix up with him, because he had a bad reputation, that she would somehow catch by association if she was seen with him.

He was loud and annoying but he wasn’t… bad. He was nice, even.

And he was… alone.

She couldn’t not think back on what he had yelled at the girls the last time. _“You don’t know anything about Sasuke.”_ It was true, and they didn’t know anything about Naruto either. And they certainly didn’t know about them, together.

Sasuke was an orphan too now. And it seemed like they were not so alone anymore.

It had been so long since she had seen and heard him like that. Relaxed, responsive. Not gloomy and unfriendly. He had always been a reserved, quiet boy, but in two very different way, before and after what had happened to his family.

How was it that they had never questioned that? Ino and her and the other girls, they had barely registered the news. They had left him alone for a little while – a request from Iruka-sensei – and then things had gone back to normal.

To them. Things had gone back to normal _to them._

Sasuke was just even quieter and more introverted than usual. He was more biting in his rebuttal. That was all.

Things had gone back to normal while his whole family was gone.

_“You don’t know anything about Sasuke.”_

She really didn’t. She didn’t know he could trade banter like that. Didn’t know he shared so much with Naruto. Didn’t even know where he lived until just now.

She wanted to go home. Home to her parents, to her mother’s cooking and her father’s help. She felt awful, crushed by a sadness that wasn’t her own, that she didn’t want to feel but couldn’t escape.

“See you tomorrow, Sakura,” Ino said with a vague wave by the entrance of her clan’s estate. She usually hung out at the flower shop after school, but this time she went straight through the gate and to her house. Sakura turned on her heels, wondering while she felt so unhinged suddenly, until she realized with a start that it had been a long time, maybe years, since Ino had called her by her name.

.

Naruto was trying to teach Sasuke how to be nicer to their classmates and to people in general. So far he had managed to at least make him stop glare at everyone who approached them. Small victory.

So when Sakura walked to them the next day in class, Sasuke visibly stiffened but didn’t try to send her away by the sheer force of his gaze. Naruto counted that as a huge win, because the girls belonging to his fan club were the ones Sasuke had the least tolerance for.

“Hi Sakura!” Naruto greeted cheerfully. He liked the other girl. She was very pretty and one of the less mean ones, even if she thought he was an idiot. They all did so that wasn’t really a criterion.

“Hey boys. Hum, I… I have something for you.”

She shoved a bento bags with a nice flower pattern under Sasuke’s nose. Naruto had to elbow him in the side to make him take it. Neatly wrapped in cooking foil were a bunch of lumpy chocolate chip cookies.

“I don’t like sweets,” Sasuke said bluntly. Naruto rolled his eyes, ready to intervene, but Sakura beat him to it.

"It's bitter chocolate. And… and it's for both of you."

She was blushing lightly but she made determined eye contact with Sasuke. He raised a skeptical eyebrow – Naruto was super jealous of how much he managed to convey with his eyebrows alone. He’d been training in secret but he couldn’t raise just one at a time, it was very frustrating.

Well, he needed both his eyebrows raised anyway to convey his surprise. She smiled at him with a small nod, like to confirm it wasn’t a joke.

“Thank you Sakura!” he said, heartfelt. It was the first time anyone offered him something like that. He didn’t waste time biting in one of the cookies. They weren’t sweet enough for his taste but it would suit Sasuke too, so it was okay. He elbowed the other boy again, who glared at him sideways but still complied.

“…Thanks,” he mumbled. Naruto nodded happily while munching on his cookie. There was hope for the other boy yet.

“You’re welcome.”

Naruto was sure she was going to ask for something in return, or try to pry more words out of Sasuke. Naruto was kind of impressed by those girls’ perseverance now that he knew how actually hard it was to make him answer things when he didn’t want to – and even when he wanted to, since words had to be physically wrestled out of him anyway. Mostly though, he found it annoying. If Sasuke didn’t want to talk, he didn’t have to, and Naruto didn’t like that the girls kept harassing him when he was obviously not on board.

But Sakura turned around with a last, shy smile, and went back to her place under the other girls’ unhappy glare.

Except Ino’s, who marched toward their table, slammed a box between the two of them, and with an aggressive “sorry” aimed at Sasuke – or maybe Naruto, or maybe both – stormed off to her own seat.

The box was full of takoyaki.

“What was that about?” Naruto asked, mouth stuffed with takoyaki already, because she had put it between them and there were no reasons for him not to.

“Dunno,” Sasuke said with a shrug. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Naruto rolled his eyes and popped another ball into his mouth, pondering at the huge mystery that were _girls_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I babysit kids regularly and I've had 10-year-old girls telling me they had to look after their weight. That shit is heartbreaking. They'll learn though and they'll become badass ninja. The next chapter will be pretty different because we'll see what the adults are up to for a change. I'm bringing the politics to your doorsteps my friends.
> 
> Don't forget to leave comments and breathe life into me! Also quick survey d'you even read those author notes and do you care at all that I answer comments not that I'm going to stop I'm just curious.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are adults. Wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I know so many of you read those notes I feel like I should care more about what nonsense I write here haha. This chapter is vastly different from the rest. For starters there's barely any kid in it, which is sad. We move on to adult friendships for a change. Secondly, there is actually original characters in this because... Well, because most of those kids don't have a mother. Like, they don't exist. I don't take fillers into account (and some would still not exist even if I did u.u) so I came up with those because I didn't want this discussion to be a sausage fest. Thirdly, we're dabbing into politics! Yay! There will be more (but not too much).
> 
> Enjoy!

“Ino, is there something you want to tell us?”

Ino frowned into her bowl of rice, cursing his father and his perceptiveness. Being the daughter of a master interrogator and a psychologist _sucked_ when you wanted to hide something.

She was getting better at it though. She had managed to go a couple of days without being questioned. It was a dull victory.

“There is something I think I _should_ tell you. But I don’t know if I want to.”

She never lied to her parents. It was pointless, and being caught lying was awful. She was secretive in the sense that she didn’t talk to them much – she hated to feel like they already knew what she wanted to say, that they knew everything.

This, she was reasonably sure they didn’t, and it could have been enough to tell them, just to be the one with the information for once.

But she had promised. And she could even guess why.

“Is it something bad?” her mother asked, putting her chopsticks down and entering in what Ino referred to in her head as her “interrogation mode”. She probably wasn’t aware she was doing it, but Ino could see it plain as day. “If you’re covering something...”

“No, it’s not bad.” She turned toward her father. “I know that it’s important you stay informed about what goes on in the village, that’s why I think I should tell you. But I said I wouldn’t and I… I don’t know what you’ll do with it.”

She wasn’t making much sense and she could see by their expression that they were imagining far worse scenarios than what this was actually about. She sighed in frustration, trying to gather her thought.

“I’d like to ask that you do nothing with it but I know I can’t. And so if you do… I will have betrayed my promise and it will be my fault.”

She wasn’t naïve enough to believe reassurance like “we swear we won’t get mad” or “we promise we won’t do anything about it”. That’s what people said _before_.

She once had told Sakura that nothing she could say or do would make Ino stop being her friend. It was right before she had confessed being in love with Sasuke.

And they weren’t friends anymore.

“Do you think it’s dangerous that I don’t know this?” her father asked. He was in interrogation mode too now. It was even less subtle than her mother’s.

“Maybe,” she admitted uneasily. They were just _kids_. Lonely kids, and no one knew. And not just any kid either.

The adults were all so sure they were being subtle about Naruto, that none of the kids had caught on. It was risible. No one said, and yet they all knew. She had no idea in what way he was special, why he was different from the rest of them. But he was.

“We can’t force you to talk,” her mother said. Ino reined in the urge to roll her eyes. It was the exact thing she said when she wanted to convey that her daughter better start talking right now. Just broaching the subject, Ino had lost already.

“Just keep in mind that it’s a good thing,” she said in a rush. “It really is. They were so sad before but now… So it’s a good thing.”

“Ino, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She blinked back frustrated tears. His father had to know. It was important. That didn’t make her feel any better about breaking her words.

“It’s about Naruto, and Sasuke.”

.

“I seem to recall a time when we would gather like this just to drink, and not because you had yet another terrible dilemma to present to us.”

Inoichi closed his eyes to will some patience into himself. It was in Shikaku’s nature to be contradictory and generally unpleasant, and he had a point. It seemed like they only saw each other when there was a crisis to deal with lately.

Which was often, still, but sad.

“We can still drink,” Choza said helpfully, always willing to smooth things over. He was waving an unopened bottle of sake. His wife Chiro entered the living room behind him with a second bottle. Her sister was watching over their kids for the night at the Akimichi residence. It wasn’t a discussion Inoichi wanted any of them to stumble upon.

“It’s not like _you_ make any efforts to invite your friends over either," Yoshino snarled at her husband before nudging him to move over and leave her some space around the table. Feeling overpowered, Shikaku choose the wise – and easy – path, and said nothing more.

Sayori brought glasses from the kitchen and served a good dose of sake to the six of them. Inoichi thanked his wife with a small nod. They were going to need it.

“It’s nothing serious though right?” Choza asked after a long silence, unnerved by Inoichi’s sullen expression.

“I guess it’s not. For now, at least.”

“Spill then, Ichi,” Shikaku said before grimacing at the elbow Yoshino had just dug into his side for his “rude manners”.

Inoichi was hit with an absurd surge of nostalgia. Shikaku was right, they used to do this all the time. They lived in each other’s pocket when they were still in active duty, when they all married and settled in adult life while still being unruly brats. But they all had their own responsibilities now, their clan to run, their position in the ninja forces and the government, their kids to take care of.

They had become very boring indeed.

Inoichi shook his head. He didn’t like these trains of thoughts. They were unproductive and pointless. It was just life.

“Ino told me that Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke started living together.”

He studied their reaction carefully with a critical eye born out of a habit that they all disliked but tolerated, as they tolerated each other’s flaws and most annoying traits.

Yoshino at least had the good taste to look apologetic. Shikaku didn’t even bother.

“You already knew,” Sayori stated to the couple with accusation in her voice. Yoshino sat up straighter – it wasn’t Shikaku who was going to defend them.

“Yes. For a little while now. Shikamaru remarked on both boys’ change of behavior, and Shikamaru doesn’t just remark on things for the hell of it.”

“I followed them once, just to be sure,” Shikaku added. “It’s not like they were actively trying to hide it.”

Inoichi knew that – it had taken only a stroll around the Academy after class to get confirmation. They weren’t hiding it indeed.

It’s just that nobody was paying attention.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Shikaku looked at his wife, defering to her explanations. It was easy to assume she had been the one to require his silence.

“I imagine for the same reason you felt the urge to bring this to us first, instead of reporting it to the Hokage as soon as Ino told you.”

“What, so Shikamaru asked you not to?”

“Not in so many words. But the change he brought to us… It wasn’t something bad.”

Shikaku, Choza and Inoichi had made great efforts, from the moment their kids were born, to encourage them to become friends. They would carry their trio formation – whether they wanted to or not – and it was best that they started to bond as early as possible.

For Shikamaru and Choji, the deed was done. The two boys were inseparable and deeply cared about each other. With Ino though, things were more complicated. They had gotten along fine enough as young kids, but things had taken a turn for the worse over the years, and now that they were at the Academy, they barely interacted with each other.

Or well, that’s what they wanted their parents to believe. Inoichi was convinced his daughter played her disdain for the boys. He had no idea why, but he could guess it was a form of rebellion, of not doing what their parents wanted.  
She was probably mad what they wanted and what she wanted intersected, because he was convinced she actually liked Shikamaru and Choji. She just didn’t want to admit it. There was also some school hierarchy at play, probably. Inoichi and his friends wouldn’t have been caught in a two-mile radius of a girl when they were that age.

Whatever was the actual state of that relationship, he could reasonably assume that Ino and Shikamaru had shared thoughts on that subject. Shikamaru had questioned his parents about Naruto before. Ino and Choji had not, but Inoichi couldn’t hope that they hadn’t noticed anything.

Proof was the reluctance Ino had had to talk about this.

“That’s what she told me too, yeah. And I can’t say I disagree.”

That made Yoshino relax visibly, and oh, that’s what this was about. She was guarded because she worried about what he would do, just like Ino did.

It’s true that from the Head of the Intelligence perspective, the information was not only crucial, it was also worrying. There was a reason why Uchiha Mikoto, despite her pleading, had never been allowed to so much as approach Naruto. The fear of the Uchiha’s influence on the jinchuuriki had never lessened with time. And it was still present now. Sasuke and Naruto’s friendship had ramifications neither of them could begin to understand or apprehend.

It would have been better they weren’t friends at all.

“None of us did anything,” Yoshino said harshly as the silence dragged on. “For either of them. It’s our fault if all they have is each other now, and I’m not about to take that from them.”

“The Hokage still has to be informed,” Choza pointed out.

“It’s been going on for a couple of months, at least. If he doesn’t know yet, it’s because he’s not looking. We won’t be the ones to tell him.”

Yoshino shot a warning glare at Shikaku, daring him to say anything. He was always careful not to anger his wife – except when it came to political matters. As jounin commander and close advisor to the Hokage, he was heavily involved in various tricky situations that Inoichi preferred not to think about too much. Shikaku shared everything with his wife despite how harder it could make his life, notably when she decided she disagreed with whatever decisions had been reached in the Hokage’s office. Those matters were the only ones they properly argued about, when in all others he deferred to his wife without putting much of a fight. They shared similar views, but Shikaku had a tendency to go with the flow, while Yoshino was ready to fight anyone and anything. Her inability to compromise was the reason why she had never gotten a desk job in the administration like the rest of them. She was the only one still going on regular missions.

Shikaku nodded at her subtly, and that’s how Inoichi knew he agreed with her on this, despite their conscious silence being borderline treason.

“What did you want from us, Inoichi? Why did you call us here? You already know what you want to do,” Chiro said while filling her glass without breaking eye contact. He sighed heavily and accepted the offer to have his filled as well.

“I just wanted to know if you’d back me up on this I guess,” he admitted.

“If we know nothing, there’s nothing to tell,” Choza said easily, like it was that simple. For him it usually was. While Shikaku’s big brain was running in circle and Inoichi was worrying over every worst-case scenario, Choza was the one to stay calm and collected. He never worried. Inoichi envied him.

“Not only that. I’ll intercede in their favor, if need be,” Inoichi declared.

He didn’t know that’s what he was going to say before he said it. A number of people in the council and the Hokage’s entourage would take badly to Naruto and Sasuke getting this close. In both ways, probably, fearing both the power Sasuke could someday gain over Naruto, and Naruto’s bad influence on the last remaining shinobi from Konoha’s most powerful clan.

But Yoshino had a point, high profile as they both were, if the Hokage hadn't said anything about it, it's because he didn't know, didn’t care, or didn’t want to do anything about it. Either way, if it did get out, Inoichi wanted to help.

Because they were freaking _children_.

“We’ll stand by you. Don’t we always?” Shikaku deadpanned. He was trying to be cynical, but the declaration was heartfelt. They always had each other’s back indeed.

“Are we sure it’s a good thing though?” Chiro asked, never one to be won over by base sentimentality. She was way more practical than her dreamer of a husband

“I saw them at the market today,” Sayori said after downing the rest of her glass in one go. “They were smiling. The both of them. Sasuke too.”

Inoichi had been equally surprised when he’d followed them both on their way home. They had all seen Sasuke after his Clan’s downfall. They had all doubted he would ever recover from it, even marginally. Sayori had tried to get through him, as the lead psychologist in all that concerned shinobis’ trauma, but the boy had stayed impervious to any attempt for help.

And then they’d just… turned away from the matter.

No one had stepped forward to take care of the boy. They all had their excuses. The political entanglement, their mutual reluctance to see the Sharingan integrate another clan. The unspoken fear of a similar fate as the Uchiha’s befalling their own families, because no one truly believed Itachi had simply flipped and slaughtered them all for no reason. He was nowhere to be found and the investigation was at a virtual dead-end, but Inoichi and many others were convinced there was foul play, probably a foreign hand manipulating the boy to wipe out one of Konoha’s main force. So they’d let the boy go back to his dead house, and that was the end of it.

“Mikoto was our friend,” Yoshino said to Chiro. “Kushina too. Had it been us, had it been our clan… I never feared our children would be abandoned, should something happen to us. But I suppose they didn't either. They must have believed someone would step in. That their friends would take care of their kids in their place."

And they simply hadn’t. There were reasons upon explanations piling up to justify this, but the facts remained the same. They hadn’t. Inoichi tried to imagine Ino taking care of herself alone in their empty home, surrounded by turned back and closed hands.

No excuses made the bitterness any easier to swallow.

Their hands were tied now. The balance of power was too shifty still, too unstable for them to make a move toward the boys. But…

“I’m going to encourage Ino to befriend them,” Sayori declared out of the blue. They exchanged a look and he couldn’t help but smile – they were of the exact same mind, as often. She smiled back before continuing. “Naruto’s condition has been kept a secret in hope that our children wouldn’t pick up on the village hatred. Since it’s working so well, I’ll take it one step further. I’m sure they’ll be better than us, those kids. We can only leave it to them.”

They would, for sure. Even Inoichi, his wife and their friends, even they were wary of Naruto. It was something Inoichi was ashamed of but couldn’t control. The Kyuubi’s destruction and desolation were too fresh in their mind, too close to the surface. Jinchuurikis were only temporary solutions at best. They were never safe from the Beasts. The power Naruto carried, they couldn’t ignore it.

But kids easily befriended monsters. They could form bonds that would overcome that fear, that would see past when the adults couldn’t.

“They could use some friends alright,” Shikaku said. They all nodded somberly, the mood sullen and heavy, to the point that they jumped with undignified cries when Choza slammed both his fist on the tables.

“Let's drink then," he said cheerfully, eliciting much-needed laughter from his friends. They refilled their glasses and Sayori went to fetch leftovers out of the fridge as Chiro produced snacks form who knew where. They resolved to put their worry out of their mind for now. Plenty of times to deal with them later.

.

“Well?” Ino demanded as soon as she went back home the next morning. Inoichi was nursing a headache and despairing over the hours of paperwork he would have to get through during the day. Ino wasn’t one to be kept waiting though.

“Well what?” he asked, just to be contradictory. It was illusory to think she wouldn’t guess what the previous night meeting with “the gang”, as she called her parents and their friends, was about. They had probably discussed it heavily with Choji and Shikamaru, holding their own gang meeting. Inoichi lost himself for a moment in imagining them years from now with their own spouses, drinking and talking well into the night. He hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with the same kind of issues.

“Dad,” she said in an exasperated tone, so close to his mother’s Inoichi had to stifle a laugh. He sobered up when he saw the quiet worry in her big blue eyes.

“We’ll leave them be, Ino-chi. I promise.”

The hug caught him off guard – she always said she was too old for them now.

“Thanks dad,” she mumbled before pulling away just as fast and running to her room. Inoichi shook his head.

He would keep an eye on the both of them. Who knew, maybe it would all turn out for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most unrealistic thing in this is Konoha having psychologists x) Two more chapters to go and this arc will be over. Next we'll move on to Naruto and Sasuke making All The Friends, it's gonna be great.
> 
> So yeah I've said enough that adults plainly sucked in Naruto but I can't decently leave it at that, so I tried yeah? I mean all those people (clan heads, high ranking shinobi and all) had to know each other right. Had to be, if not friends, at least acquaintances and such. And they KNOW that there are lonely kids running around unsupervised and uncared for... sigh. Full disclosure Shikamaru is one of my fave and I like the Ino-Shika-Cho in general, both old and new (not like Boruto new but) and I wanted them to feature and be friends okay that's it for me bye. (Once again it's [this fics's fault](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13867416/chapters/31900653))


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday Sasuke please stop sulking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My ultimate goal in life is to kill all of you either with fuff or with angst. Let me know how I'm doing so far.

Naruto and Sasuke’s newfound proximity meant it was now virtually impossible to get a hold of Sasuke alone, but Sakura discovered that it also meant, quite logically really, that it was also very hard to get a hold of _Naruto_ alone.

She was almost jealous. They were always together. They saved each other a seat next to theirs in class, they ate lunch together, they sparred together during training, they helped each other in class and hung out together afterward. Well, Sasuke helped Naruto, even if he always pretended it was the other way around when the teachers complained about them being too loud. Or about Naruto being too loud, more often than not.

It was easy to see that it angered Sasuke greatly. Any ill words against Naruto had all but disappeared, now that Sasuke was there to make sure they wouldn’t go unpunished. Naruto for the most part seemed wildly oblivious to the trend, which was also Sasuke’s doing. He was like a guardian angel.

A mean one.

When she got lost in daydreaming Sakura imagined being the one to be protected this way by the other boy. She wasn’t bullied like Naruto was, but she didn't have that many friends in class either. She was hanging less and less with Sasuke’s fan club, and she wasn’t really missing them, nor were they missing her. It hurt, a little. But it was fine.

If Sasuke fell in love with her, she would hang out with him and Naruto, and all would be fine.

But for that she needed to talk to Naruto, and it was proving way harder than it should have been. He was never alone anymore. He was with Sasuke, or with Shikamaru and Choji, and even Ino – she wasn’t seen much with the fan club either lately, and more and more with her childhood friends.

Sakura wasn’t that jealous. She wasn’t.

She chased after him for days without success but with increasing agitation. Only to stumble upon him by total chance at the market.

She made a quick excuse to her mother and took off to catch the other boy busy studying a vegetable stand under the merchant’s dirty glare.

“Hey, Naruto, hi! It’s funny to see you there,” she said once she reached him, hoping he hadn’t noticed her racing in his direction.

“Oh, hi Sakura! It’s nice to see you!”

He always said that, and amazingly enough, she got the feeling he always meant it. Was it possible to fake being that earnest? She doubted it.

“What are you doing here?”

Alone, she didn’t add. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen.

“I ate all the carrots Sasuke bought for the curry so he sent me to buy some more. How was I supposed to know? Carrots make for a great snack!” he complained heartily, before worry settled on his face. “I mean… not that he makes food with me all the time or whatever. We just hang out. And then we go home. Not together.”

She chuckled at his antics. He was no good at keeping secrets.

“That’s nice,” she said helpfully, hoping to put him at ease.

“What ‘bout you Sakura? Do you need to buy carrots too?”

“No I, hum… I’m helping my mother with the shopping.”

It was stupid to feel bad about mentioning her mother. She never had before, but she couldn’t help it. He didn’t notice though, or he hid it well.

“That’s nice!” he said with a smile. He paid for the carrots and some tomatoes before turning away, ready to go home.

“Wait! I… I actually wanted to talk to you about something. If you have time.”

He cast her a puzzled look but nodded easily.

“You can walk with me if you want? If I take too long Sasuke will come looking for me and then complain that he had to leave home. I mean, my home. I mean…”

“Alright, let’s do that,” she cut. She spotted her mother chatting with one of her friends and figured she could spare the time.

She waited until they had walked out of the market and reached some less busy streets. He stayed surprisingly quiet when she thought she would have to wrestle the speaking time out of him. Sasuke was rubbing off on him.

“I wanted to ask you about Sasuke’s birthday," she declared, figuring she might as well be direct. He frowned, just barely, his guard up in an instant as he looked at her sideways.

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Well I… I got into thinking about what you said last time. You’re… you’re the one who knows Sasuke the best. So I was wondering if you had… like, advice, for me. For what I could get him.”

The change was instantaneous. He beamed at her, delighted for some reasons.

“Oh, cool! No problem, I’ll help. Wait, let’s sit somewhere.”

He spotted a nearby bench under the rustling trees and plopped down before looking at her expectantly. She didn’t expect that much enthusiasm, but she went with the flow and settled down next to him.

“Okay. Tell me why you want to make Sasuke a gift.”

She frowned, puzzled by the question.

"It's his birthday. You give people gifts for their birthday."

He didn’t appreciate her tone, she could tell, but he didn’t say anything. She felt a bit guilty – she didn’t mean to sound so condescending.

"I know that. But you don't give gifts to everyone."

“No, of course not.”

“So why Sasuke?”

She blushed heavily. As if he didn’t know!

“Well it’s because I… I… I like him.”

He wasn’t phased at all.

“Alright, but why do you want to give him a gift?”

She cast him an annoyed look. She didn’t get what he wanted her to say.

“I want him to know that I…”

“Biiip!” he cut with an obnoxious loud noise. “Wrong!”

“What?”

“You can’t make a good gift if you expect something in return. Why do you want to offer him something?”

“I don’t know! So he’ll notice me!”

“Biiip.”

“Stop that you idiot! Why do _you_ want to buy him a gift?”

His smile dimmed a little. She shouldn’t have called him an idiot, but he was so annoying! She debated briefly about apologizing, but he was used to it after all. She didn’t mean it.

She thought he would get up and leave, but no. He stayed right where he was, and he even answered.

“I love Sasuke,” he said easily. “He makes my life better and I’m happy he’s here. But he’s often sad and that makes me sad too. It also makes me happy if he was happy. So I want to give him something I hope will make him happy.”

His gaze was lost, far away, and he had probably forgotten about her.

“Most people I wouldn’t give gifts to because I don't care about them, and they don't care about me either. Sasuke is special, you see? If I could I’d give him gifts all the time, if I knew it would make him happier. But it wouldn’t because the apartment is cluttered already and he would say things like “we have enough stuff Naruto. We don’t need _another_ teapot Naruto. Even if it’s shaped like a frog”. Also I would run out of idea eventually. And it’s more precious if it’s not too often or whatever. Even if like, a lot of things stay precious I think, even if you get them a million time.”

After a soulful silence, his eyes widened and he added hastily “not that we buy things for my flat together. ‘Cause why would we do that heh.”

He was such an idiot.

And yet.

She wanted Sasuke to be pleased with what she gave him, so that he would like her better. But she knew it's not gifts that made love, or he would already be in love with half the girls of their class, with the number of things they had given him – or tried to – over the years. 

She remembered how they had looked expectant when she had given them the cookies, like they were waiting for her to ask something in return. It had been a whim – she had made it back home sad and gloomy, and she’d just wanted to _do_ something. Not so that they would thank her, not to that they would owe her. But just to… Make things a little easier, for them. Just a little.

No one cooked dessert for them at home. They had to do it themselves, or buy it, and it made her sad for no reason.

Sasuke had thanked her then. He had never thanked her before.

“Alright. Alright. I get it.”

It almost felt like she had resolved her dilemma. Except she hadn’t. At all!

“Wait. I still don’t know what I should get him!”

“Okay, so. What do you think Sasuke likes?” he asked. She rolled her eyes. That was her question! Because he obviously knew that more than her.

It seemed like he wasn’t going to make it easy for her though, so she tried to think about it. Sasuke wasn’t often thing enjoying anything. He was always scowling.

Oh. Not always.

“He likes spending time with you.”

She was pretty proud of her answer but it didn’t have the intended effect at all. Naruto spluttered and spat out some piece of carrots – wasn’t he supposed _not_ to eat them? – and his whole face caught fire.

“Wh…what? No! That’s not… What?”

“Well… he does,” Sakura said. Surely Naruto had to know that?

“No but it’s… it doesn’t count. It’s lame. Find something else.”

He jumped on his feet, eager to leave all of the sudden.

“I’ll go now, alright? Just… be kind to him, that’s all. Please.”

And with those last nonsensical words, he was gone.

Sakura walked back to the market on autopilot, lost in thought, but she didn’t find any answer more obvious than the one she had given. It was around Naruto that Sasuke could be find smiling, if only a little, it was when the blonde talked and joked and bothered him that he came alive, after looking like a ghost for months.

She sighed, resolving to fall back on her second plan – spy on him until inspiration struck.

“Sakura! Where were you, I need some help here!”

She hurried over to her mother with an apology and took some of the bags she was carrying.

“Where did you run off?” her mother asked sternly.

“I just… ran into a friend,” Sakura said. It was true enough. Wasn’t it?

“Naruto is your friend?”

Sakura hid a grimace. She didn’t think her mother had seen.

“He is,” she confirmed. She didn’t know why. She knew her mother wouldn’t like it. Indeed, she clicked her tongue, displeased.

“I don’t like that you hang around that boy, Sakura.”

“Well I do.”

It gave both of them the same pause. Sakura kept her eyes on the floor, horrified by her own audacity. What had possessed her to say that? She was never that insolent.

Her mother was probably too surprised to answer, because she resumed walking without a word. They stayed silent the whole way home.

.

Sasuke looked so gloomy on the day of his birthday, Naruto thought he would break the cardinal rule and skip class. Naruto had half a mind to suggest exactly that – they could get some food and have a nice day out in the fields or in the forest. He wasn’t really looking forward to the Academy either. He remembered all too well the festival of girls trying to put their present on top of the pile of Sasuke’s desk the year before, and Sasuke was more patient and indulgent then. Today Naruto feared he would snap and make one of them cry, or heaven forbid, cry himself. That would suck for a birthday.

Sasuke wasn’t one to back out though, so they went to the Academy anyway. Naruto decided to work as a buffer. He took the gifts and thanked the girls in Sasuke’s place, since the boy seemed determined to go through the whole day in complete silence. They gave him nasty looks but didn’t dare say anything in front of Sasuke. Naruto opened the packets and boxes enough to see what was inside and make educated guesses about whether it would offend Sasuke or not. Most of them were a yes, with a few passing the neutral bar and others he hid quickly least they made Sasuke implode on the spot. Curiously enough, Sakura didn’t come. He wasn’t sure he’d been able to help her in any way.

Ino approached their desk just before the end of lunch break, empty-handed and face angry.

“I was going to give you a stupid book from my father,” she said bluntly. “ _Greatest battles of the shinobi_ _world_ or whatever.”

Sasuke’s interest was piqued, but he hid it carefully.

“And?” he asked, feigning indifference. Now that he knew him well enough, Naruto couldn’t remember why he’d ever thought the other boy was hard to read.

“And I can’t give it to you yet. I… have to finish it first.”

She was pouting and frowning like it cost her greatly to admit this. It kind of did – she had been heard many times mocking those who buried themselves in books and “nerds” in general, especially Shikamaru. She was too cool for books.

“Lend it to me when you’re done,” Sasuke demanded. It was the kind of books they couldn’t buy and couldn’t easily borrow at the library – not without Naruto distracting the desk lady while Sasuke stuffed it under his shirt. She nodded and turned back without a word. Funnily enough, she probably had the title of best gift of the day.

Sasuke let Naruto eat most of the food gifts, and they bagged the rest to sort through later. Naruto already knew they would keep none of it – except maybe a book or two to wedge the fridge in place. Sasuke made it clear – by way of an especially dark glare – that none of the girls was to follow him after school and that he wouldn’t spend time with any of them. They were going straight to the apartment for once. Naruto had to cook dinner – he wanted to make something special, and he’d managed to decipher all on his own one of Sasuke’s mother’s recipe that was marked with a post-it sporting a bright red heart.

He also had to give his own gift to Sasuke. He was nervous, if not terrified, to see how Sasuke would take it, but he wasn’t going to back down.

They were stopped on the way though by no other than Sakura.

“Wait, wait!”

Sasuke tried to ignore her but Naruto grabbed him by the sleeve to make him stop in his track.

“Don’t be rude,” he warned. Sasuke pouted.

“Sorry, hum, I… didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone else,” Sakura said in a rush, a bit out of breath for having run after them. She handed an envelope to Sasuke, who took it after a stern look from Naruto.

There were two tickets inside.

“It’s for a movie,” she explained to her shoes, blushing. “There’s one called “Road to Ninja” playing this week at the cinema, but it can be whatever you want.”

Sasuke was frowning, mouth set in a displeased line. She wasn’t the only one who had tried to wriggle a date out of a gift.

“It’s not for us,” she added, raising her head and meeting Sasuke’s gaze for the first time. “It’s for the both of you. There’s popcorn included too. On me.”

It would have been a lie to say they had matching expressions of surprise – Sasuke was far more reserved in his facial cues – but the feelings were the same.

“Why?” Naruto couldn’t help but ask.

“You said to think about what the other liked,” she said simply. Naruto frowned. He’d never heard Sasuke mention any particular fondness for the movies. But he did look pleased. When he put the envelope in his pocket carefully, his face was relaxed and he no longer looked upset.

“Thank you, Sakura,” he said, not even mumbling. She beamed and ran away without another word.

“Well that’s nice of her,” Naruto commented, since it seemed to be, indeed, something nice.

“Idiot,” Sasuke answered completely gratuitously.

“Hey! Don’t be mean or you won’t get your gift!”

“I don’t care about your stupid gift,” Sasuke deadpanned, only to add a second later, “that’s not true.”

Naruto chuckled.

“You’re the idiot.”

Sasuke smiled.

.

The secret was to actively avoid thinking of what could have been.

Sasuke was becoming good at this and Naruto provided good distractions and good help. Don’t think about going home, about what your parents would have offered you. Don’t think about what your mother would have cooked. Don’t think about the congratulations following you around the Uchiha district.

He could do it because he had other things to focus on. Like what Naruto had planned, how they were going to end the day. Sasuke’s birthday had never been that huge of a deal, just a nice family day, but Naruto was excited enough for the both of them. Sasuke didn’t know why it mattered so much to him. He wasn’t complaining though.

It was nice.

Because there was another side of the coin he was trying not to think about. Don’t think about going back to your empty house and spending the day all on your own. Don’t think about bearing your classmates with no support.

Don’t think about life with your family, but don’t think about life without Naruto either.

“Why are you so eager about this anyway?” Sasuke asked on the way home, as Naruto was putting all his brain power into deciding whether gifts should be offered before or after dinner.

“Well, y'know, I never really got what the big deal about birthdays was before,” Naruto answered, a little sheepish, “but now... I kind of get it. I get why people want to celebrate those days. I want to too. because it's... you know. It's... you're here. Thanks to that day, you're here now. It's... It's worth celebrating.”

Sasuke looked away. He often had to, because Naruto's emotions could be hard to handle, for him. He was just so... So much.

Sasuke was grateful too. He would have to find out about Naruto's birthday.

“We’re home!” Naruto screamed as he opened the door. Fortunately for Sasuke, Naruto made it very hard to forget about him.

They got rid of their shoes and Naruto went to the kitchen to dump the bags of gifts he was carrying.

Sasuke heard it crash loudly on the floor.

He jumped into the room on high alert, only to find Naruto standing frozen in the middle of the kitchen, and sitting at the table, Iruka-sensei and the Hokage himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I write Sasuke smiling a flower blooms somewhere (most likely in my hear). Also Sakura my sweet little bean keep trying please you're great. And Naruto blurting out heartfelt and life-changing truth without even trying is my aesthetic ok.
> 
> Leaving you on a cliffhanger haha, but don't worry as I said before I'm not dumping heavy drama on the kids just yet, so no panic! Thank you again for all your comments, you're the best and I love you.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving forward and moving, period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're wrapping this up people! Next part should be up in not too long but december is always a hell of a month so we'll see. Thank you again for all your support, enjoy!

When Sasuke burst into the kitchen, Naruto instinctively moved in front of him.

He couldn’t have explained why. Maybe to hide him. Maybe to stop him.

Maybe to protect him also.

It was irrational. There was no threat. It was just Iruka-sensei and the Sandaime, it was _no threat._ And yet Naruto was vibrating out of his own skin and dangerously close to tears.

“We’re not doing anything bad. I swear, I swear we’re not doing anything bad.”

The Sandaime was staring at them both with an unreadable expression. Iruka-sensei was shifting from feet to feet, uncomfortable. None of them looked surprised though.

Naruto reached back blindly. Sasuke took his hand.

“How long has this been going on?” the old man asked. His voice was not unkind but he wasn’t smiling either.

“A few months,” Sasuke answered uneasily, likely thrown off by Naruto’s panic. Naruto couldn’t control it. He was just… too used to it. Every time he had something nice, something that made him happy, it always ended up ripped away. The Sandaime was nice, but he was also strict, and he was the one to decide everything in the end.

If he said Sasuke wasn’t to live here anymore, there would be nothing they could do against it.

Naruto could think of no good reason why he would decide that, but had he ever known anything? He knew no reason why the villagers were so mean to him either, and yet it was a reality he had lived with his entire life – no matter how the Sandaime insisted he was imagining it.

“I see,” the Hokage said. Naruto couldn’t decipher his tone, couldn’t say how angry he was. He was aware he was shaking badly, but he didn’t know how to stop. The tears were close too, just there, but he didn’t want to cry. Only Sasuke could see him cry. No one else.

Sasuke squeezed his hand. They didn’t say a word – they couldn’t, scrutinized as they were, but Sasuke’s gaze was fierce and determined, and he didn’t let go of his hand.

“I won’t leave,” Sasuke said suddenly. He took a step to stand next to Naruto, another to stand just before him. Naruto shifted just enough to hide behind the other boy. “I live here now. I won’t go.”

Naruto could hear the cracks in his friend’s voice, but the adults probably couldn’t.

“If you make me leave, I’ll leave the village. I’ll do it.”

Naruto’s eyes widened and his grip tightened on Sasuke’s hand. Sasuke squeezed back.

“Sasuke…” Iruka tried.

"I will too! I will!" Naruto exclaimed. He peeked above Sasuke’s shoulder just enough to defy the adults.

“No one will leave the village. We’re not trying to separate you,” Iruka assured them.

Naruto saw it though. He saw the Sandaime’s lips tightened, saw his eyes narrow just a little. He saw Iruka look at the old man looking for approbation, saw his face fall when he realized he wasn’t getting it.

“We’re not trying to separate them,” he said again, more firmly. The old man inhaled a long drag from his pipe – the smell would linger for _weeks_ – before sighing heavily, his face disappearing for an instant behind a cloud of smoke.

“We’re not,” he said, but it looked like he had only decided that just then. “Calm down, Naruto, Sasuke. I’ve come to talk to you about this. I already knew.”

Naruto relaxed a fraction, but he wasn’t about to let his guard down, not as long as he didn’t know for sure that no one would try to take Sasuke away from him.

So not for a long time probably.

“You did?”

“Hm hm. Were you planning to tell me?”

Naruto didn’t want to lie and he didn’t want to tell the truth either. He chose not to answer.

"You could have asked permission at least," the Hokage said, to Sasuke this time. Sasuke stayed silent too but Naruto was familiar with his tells.

His anger was easy to spot by now.

“It doesn’t matter now. I have a proposition for you,” the old man said, and finally the serious was gone and he was smiling again, the good mood smile, the one that made him look like a nice grandfather and not the ruler of the land. Naruto breathed a little easier.

“What is it?” Sasuke asked, still wary. Naruto imagined the perspective of being forced to go back to his house had soured his mood for good.

“This place is a bit cramped for two. The apartment right next to yours has been empty for some times. It needs a good clean up, but it has two bedrooms. It’s yours, if you want it.”

The backflip of the conversation left Naruto dizzy. Was that for real? This place wasn’t that small seeing how small they were themselves, but having a bedroom each would be nice wouldn’t it? If only so that Sasuke could fill a cupboard or too with kunai. More space also meant more plants, and the other side of the building was exposed to the south, so he’d be able to get some of the plants he didn’t have proper light to give to before.

And it would be their place. Not Naruto’s place where Sasuke was. _Theirs_.

He couldn’t just say that though. He had to ask Sasuke first. They needed to take important decisions together, it was the rule.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Iruka stepped in after an uncomfortable silence. “I’ll swing by tomorrow and I’ll help you with the move if you need it, alright? But it’s your decision. We’re not forcing you to do anything.”

Naruto half expected the old man to contradict that, but he didn’t add a word. For a while he just stared at them in turn, unreadable, his pipe fuming in the still air. Finally, after what felt like forever, he sighed again and got up.

“We’ll leave you to it, children.”

He walked toward the door without another word. Iruka approached them with a soft, engaging smile, and knelt in front of them, one hand Naruto’s shoulder, the other on Sasuke’s.

“It’s going to be fine boys, alright? I’m on your side. Nothing will happen to you.”

Naruto didn’t know how Iruka managed to do that thing where he soothed his worry without Naruto ever voicing them. He was a great guesser of feelings.

Sasuke nodded seriously. Naruto did too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He shut the door carefully behind him and despite knowing what was coming, Naruto was powerless to stop it.

“You’re gonna cry, aren’t you?” Sasuke asked. He looked upset. Naruto nodded pitifully.

.

Sasuke had a dilemma. He had come up with a simple rule in the last few weeks – people who upset Naruto were his enemies. Simple, clear, efficient. It divided the world around him neatly – people who were nice to Naruto, and people who weren’t. He was ready to revise his judgment if people were mean once and nice later, since Naruto was willing to forgive everyone and anyone.

So now Sasuke had a dilemma, because the Hokage had just made Naruto very, very upset. He had even made him cried.

Could Sasuke reasonably make an enemy out of the man?

The simple fact that he was asking himself the question was probably alarming. He didn’t care. Between Naruto and the Hokage, the choice was easy.

“It’s okay, Naruto. It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy hiccupped around a sob. “I’m sorry, I just... I don’t… I was so scared. I don’t want you to _leave_.”

“I won’t. I won’t.”

Naruto was rubbing his face to try to wipe out his tears, shoulders hunched, curling around himself. Sasuke knew what he had to do. He just had to find the courage. But Naruto had found it for him, Naruto had comforted him time and time again, and Sasuke had to be able to do the same.

He took a step, opened his arms. And slowly, carefully, he wrapped them around the other boy.

The surprise blocked Naruto’s sob in his throat. Sasuke hugged him hard, hard enough that Naruto would stop crying and maybe stop talking too, so he wouldn’t ask.

Naruto didn’t ask. His own arms snuck around Sasuke’s waist and he squeezed too, spreading tears and snot all over Sasuke’s shirt. To his growing horror, he was starting to feel his throat constrict too, his eyes welling up.

He had been scared too. He had been scared because he didn’t understand what was happening. Naruto was right, they weren’t doing anything wrong. Naruto wasn’t doing anything wrong, most of the time. He was always getting punished all the same.

It was the Hokage, the Hokage himself that had come all the way to Naruto’s place just to police the living arrangement of two boys no one seemed to care about otherwise. Sasuke hadn’t seen the man since the hospital. He had seemed older than ever then, despaired and grim, as he asked Sasuke about how he was feeling and what he wanted to do next. As he asked where he wanted to go.

Naruto’s pocket sure had not been an answer then.

Would it have mattered, had it been anyone else? If Sasuke had found refuge with the Nara, or the Hyuuga, or any random orphan boy lying around, would the Hokage have burst into his life too? But then, he would have known before. They wouldn’t have made such a secret out of it.

What was it with Naruto. Why did they care so much, while at the same time caring so little.

Sasuke hated not knowing.

They had homework to do, some cleaning too, and then dinner, but it was hard to focus on anything. Naruto had calmed down but he didn’t seem ready to let go yet, to get out of his hiding spot in Sasuke’s shirt.

“What are we gonna do?” he asked eventually, the words muffled, barely understandable.

“What do you want to do?”

Naruto lifted his head then, and slowly extricated himself from Sasuke’s arms. He didn’t even bother being embarrassed about his overflowing emotions anymore.

“If we stay together, I don’t care.”

Naruto never asked for anything. Whatever it was he wished for, he didn’t voice it aloud. He went along with what he already had. Sasuke wished he would make a demand. That he would be confident enough to say what he wanted.

“Do you want to move? Say it. Come on.”

Naruto opened his mouth, closed it again. He gave it a good, long thought before answering.

“I think that… that it would be nice maybe. Like… Our own place.”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

And just like that, it was a whole new adventure opening up. They had to pack their things – granted, it wasn’t much. They were going to decide where to put it all, they were going to fight about who took which bedroom. It would be their place and no one would have any power to root them out of it.

“Let’s do this, Naruto.”

The boy beamed.

.

In his lowest moments, when it was late and it looked like it would be another night spent alone in his office, when the silence closed around him, thick enough that he could hear his own thoughts, in those moments, Hiruzen sometimes had the urge to get up and turn away the portraits of the other Hokage.

They were always staring at him, unblinking, judgmental, and he couldn’t escape their sentence, ever. As strong as the urge was sometimes, he had never given in to it of course. Not only would it have been profoundly disrespectful, he just couldn’t. He didn’t deserve to escape them, and they were right to glare at him in disappointment.

The worse, of course, was Minato. Oh, how he had failed his successor.

He could have gone home after visiting Naruto and Sasuke, but he’d chosen to go back to the Hokage Tower. He always did. It was more of his home that his actual home was now, and he was so absent from his family’s life, his presence was more likely to cause more pain than to soothe it these days.

How had they come to this.

The question haunted him, and the more he asked it, the less he could figure out the answer. He thought back on the past, on his own youth, on the beginning of his time as a Hokage, on Minato taking his place, and then he looked around him, looked at the present, and he couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t add up.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. It was wrong.

The worst being, of course, that he wasn’t doing anything to change it.

It’s Mizuki who had warned him about Naruto and Sasuke. Warned him, because he seemed to think that whatever was going on, it was a bad thing. His main concern was the boys being distracted during class – Naruto distracting Sasuke – and the influence one could have on the other.

Mizuki was biased, but he wasn’t wrong, even if he had no idea of the actual consequence this situation could have. In a perfect world, Naruto and Sasuke would have been raised together, close enough to be family, just like their mothers were. In the world they had, their friendship was a political thorn in Hiruzen’s side.

But that was the worst thing, wasn’t it? That it was the way he was seeing this. That this was the first thing he had thought about. Politics. Influence. Ramification.

Only when he had brought it up to Iruka and understood that he already knew, only when he had brought it up to his jounin commander and his head of intelligence, and understood they did too, only then had he thought that it was also the friendship of two boys entirely alone in this world. What a shame, that he couldn’t see it as a good thing.

They had. And that’s the reason why they had kept it hidden from him.

The _look_ on Iruka’s face. The look on his face when Hiruzen had mentioned that this could pose issues they needed to resolve, that maybe they would have to put an end to that strange cohabitation. Iruka was no stranger to political maneuver, but this, this was too much for him. Sacrificing children’s wellbeing, it wasn’t something he could ever condone.

He had looked so betrayed. Horrified really. And, ah, yes.

Disappointed.

Hiruzen was disappointed in himself too.

Was there a time where he would have thought differently? Where his first reaction would have been to rejoice that the two lonely boys had found some measure of comfort in one another? Where he would have wanted to protect that at all cost? He didn’t know. He didn’t recall. It felt like he had been this old, cynical man for ages, forever maybe.

He had seriously thought about marching there and telling Naruto and Sasuke that they were forbidden to live together. He had thought about it even after seeing them clinging to one another, terrified but determined to defy their Hokage if need be.

It would have been easier. He knew that’s what the council and Danzo would push for. There was a reason why no one had ever been allowed to take Naruto in. The main threat of a jinchuuriki was them getting out of control, and such a relationship was an unknown parameter over which they had none. And of course it had to be the Uchiha boy.

Because yes, that’s how Hiruzen thought of them, he had realized with great horror. The jinchuuriki and the Uchiha heir. Not Naruto and Sasuke. Not the son of his dearest successor who was staring at him from his portrait. Not the last son of a clan sacrificed for the peace of the village.

Sacrificed by himself.

For a second he had really thought about taking that away from them too.

How had they come to this.

If Minato and Kushina could see him now, they would punch him. They would turn their back on him, disavow him. It was no use to think about how Minato would never have even thought about this kind of decision, because Minato would have never let such a situation happen in the first place. He was determined to give a better fate to Konoha’s jinchuuriki, be it his wife, his son, or anyone else. Minato was young, and determined for things to change.

Hiruzen was old, and change scared him. He was determined for everything to remain exactly the same.

It would have been a foolish wish, even if everything was perfect in the world. But it wasn’t even that.

Hiruzen was old, and the world was changing without him.

.

The first half of the day, they had to clean up everything. Fortunately, they were getting pretty good at this, and it was kind of fun, if pretty gross. The old lady that used to live there had died years ago, and her children had never done anything with the place, after packing up all of her belongings.

It was hard not to get distracted by huge spiders, wandering rats, and funny looking spots, but they managed to get it done.

Next, they moved all of their stuff. Sasuke had more than Naruto, but Naruto had his plants, and most of his afternoon was spent arranging them around their new place. It obeyed to a set of strange, complicated rules Sasuke couldn’t hope to decipher, so he let Naruto do his thing and focused on organizing his weapon collection.

Iruka was a great help too, even if Sasuke was wary of letting him into their space like that. He was respectful about it though, and he mainly carried things around without trying to sort them out himself. He even brought them some ramen from Ichiraku for lunch. The old man didn’t do take-out, but Iruka had convinced him because it was a special occasion.

They didn’t need to keep it a secret anymore.

They set up the Rule Scroll on a shelf in the kitchen. Iruka asked what it was, but Naruto stuck his tongue at him and claimed that it was a secret. They grinned to themselves why their teacher made a show of being sad to be excluded like this, without pushing the issue though.

At the end of the afternoon, when the sun started to set, he declared they were all good and that he could leave them to their own device.

“Do you see the small building that is right next to the Academy, with the green roof?” he asked on the doorstep. Naruto nodded – he knew the whole village by heart. “That’s where I live. If you ever need anything, if you need help, if you have questions, anything, you can come see me, okay? Anything.”

Sasuke almost wanted to ask why. Why he was so nice to them, why did he care. No one else did. But it was too heavy a question.

“We will,” he said, solemn.

“Thanks, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto said with a smile. The man smiled back and left.

They settled at the kitchen table to eat some leftovers and drink some tea. The day had been exhausting, but in a good way. Now the excitement was wearing off though, leaving them sleepy and quiet.

“Y’know, I’m gonna be Hokage someday,” Naruto declared out of the blue to the bottom of his cup he was inspecting with great concentration. Sasuke raised an eyebrow without a word – he knew, because Naruto was always screaming it to anyone who could hear it. “When I’m Hokage, I’ll give a place and a family to all the kids that have none.”

Sasuke nodded seriously. It was a sound plan.

“Why do you want to be Hokage so bad?”

“The Hokage is the most respected person in the village! When I’m Hokage, everyone will have to acknowledge and respect me, and to be kind to me too.”

“That’s dumb,” Sasuke blurt out, “I mean, that’s not how it works,” he amended quickly. “You have to be strong and good first, and then you get recognized and respected, and then they make you Hokage.”

“Huh. Yeah. I know that.”

“Also you have to know a lot of things about history and geography and politics, about all the clans and the other countries and…”

“Pfff, no need. I’ll have you for that!”

Sasuke spluttered around a sip of tea. Naruto didn’t even try to look embarrassed, or like he was doubting that reality in the slightest.

“You-you still need to know those things.”

“Alright, alright! I will. If I really need to, I’ll study all the boring stuff!”

“Why? Why go to that much trouble?”

He didn’t mean to sound so doubtful, but he honestly didn't get it. The Hokage seemed like he led an awfully busy life, with little time for leisure and rest. It was hard to imagine Uzumaki I-can’t-sit-straight-for-more-than-five-seconds Naruto calmly dealing with the village crisis behind a desk.

“Well… when you’re Hokage, you can… change things.”

“Like what?” Sasuke asked, half expecting something stupid like “make ramen the official meal of the country” or something. Instead Naruto’s face grew more serious, even if he was avoiding Sasuke’s gaze.

“You won’t laugh?”

“Hm.”

“I’ll make it forbidden for kids to live alone.”

Sasuke’s eyes widen but Naruto, hidden in his cup, couldn’t see his dumbstruck expression. He went on.

“I’ll also make it forbidden for adults to be mean to kids for no reason.”

Sasuke didn’t say that it was already supposed to be forbidden. It wasn’t hard to get why it mattered so much to his friend.

“You should make a list,” he said instead.

“A list?”

“Hm. Like a program, a list of all the things you’ll change if you’re Hokage. And then when they ask why you should be the Hokage, you can show them and explain to them what you’re gonna do.”

“You think?”

Sasuke nodded. His father used to make all sort of lists like that – things to be discussed at the assembly, things to change, things to keep the same. Being grown-up seemed to involved a great deal of lists. The adults of the clan voted on important matters, although what matters exactly, he had no idea.

He let Naruto to his musings as he thought back on the base politics his father had tried to teach him, but he had never had much interest in it. What did he care which clan was nicer or stronger than the other? They were all friends anyway, right?

Besides, the title of Clan Head wasn’t supposed to befall on him. Even if now, technically…

Naruto let out a scream. Sasuke, who was getting sleepy, nose-diving in his cup, jumped out of his skin, instantly wide awake.

“What? What is it?”

“Your gift! I forgot to give it to you!” the boy exclaimed, as panicked as if he had announced he had set fire to the building. He raced to his room – still cluttered, since putting clothes and scrolls away had far less appeal to him than moving a potted plant back and forth five centimeters on a shelf for an hour. He came back clutching a thick sheet of paper in his hands.

“Happy birthday Sasuke!” he barked, shoving the paper into his face. He looked nervous. Sasuke took it with a small “thanks”, wondering what it could be that made Naruto avoid eye contact and frown for himself.

He turned the page and oh. Oh, that’s what.

He hadn’t even noticed, in the rush, that the poster had not followed them.

“What did you do with the other?”

“I… I left it where it was. On the other door. I figured… Since we moved. It could stay there.”

Sasuke didn’t know what the red spiral meant for Naruto, why it was on many of his clothes and why it was tapped to his door. The one on the door was wobbly and uneven, probably drawn a very long time ago.

The one on the poster he had in hand was much more even, colored neatly. But more importantly, it wasn’t alone at the center of the page. It was pushed to the side, because on the other half of the page, Naruto had drawn the fan of the Uchiha.

Here they stood, both their mark, drawn with care on the thick paper. Naruto was still looking down, blushing heavily. Sasuke was overwhelmed, and he needed a moment to find his voice again.

“Let’s hang it now.”

Naruto lit up instantly. They got up hastily, raced to the front door, and they tapped the page carefully on the wood.

Everyone would know now, that here Naruto and Sasuke lived. It was there home. They were both there.

“Thank you, Naruto.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. It’s… It’s a great gift.”

It really was. Sasuke couldn’t hope to articulate the magnitude of what Naruto had offered him, but maybe he’d managed, with time, to make him understand.

“Hey Naruto. You know that thing you said back then. In class, to the girls, you know?”

“What thing?”

“About… you were talking about love.”

Naruto’s blush came back full force.

“Ah. Yeah.”

“I… I too. I… I do too.”

He couldn’t say it but it was true all the same, and Naruto didn’t need him to spell it to understand. He smiled then, gentle and happy.

“I’m glad you’re here, Sasuke,” he said simply. Sasuke smiled in return.

“Me too.”

It was stupid maybe, but Sasuke laid his futon in a corner of Naruto’s room that night, and none of them said a thing about it. Sasuke would sleep in his own room, in time. He fell asleep to Naruto’s even breathe, in their new home that was theirs and theirs only, and that would remain so.

Sasuke had just turned nine, and maybe, just maybe, things were going to be fine.         

 

 

 

 

  

_[(I drew that one scene)](https://inrainprose.tumblr.com/post/180763447684/inraindrawz-living-together-the-last-scene) _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would feel kinda bad for Hiruzen if I appreciated him in any way, but I kinda don't so. I still wanted him not to be a total total dick in here? Cause in my other fic he's worse so I have to balance things out x) mostly he makes me sad in a pathetic way. I guess the problem i have with him is the same I have with Itachi - they are sold as good guys when they... not really are? Like, Danzo is so on you Hiruzen. And everything he's done too. And honestly I actually enjoy a lot characters that are dead set into their goal and principle no matter what, and that makes huge sacrifice without wavering (I could have honestly likes Danzo had he been nuanced and not just... a raging asshole) but it's not really what we get from Hiruzen... Like he regretted almost all his life choices afterward, talk about weak ass bitch.
> 
> Anyway, this rant over and this second part is done too! I don't know why I became increasingly distressed with them not having a bedroom each at some point... at first I was gonna have them stew in anguish while the Hokage thought about stuff but hey, they suffered enough. They're on track now! Yeah the Hokage is just out there distributing flats... Idk man, idk.
> 
> Also, I'm projecting. I just love lists. See you soon!


End file.
